Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, 4th Tuesday School Board Meeting, Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Date: Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 7h 40m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/840193504?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 2026-10-20. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] 27-2023, meeting of the Loudoun County School Board. We'll begin with item 102 on our agenda. I have been notified that Denise Corbo would like to remotely participate in tonight's school board meeting. Ms. Corbo, please state your location, whether this is a medical or personal matter, and if anyone is present with you at your location.

[00:00:23] I'm at my daughter's. I'm alone. Under policy 2420, I'm asking for remote participation due to an ongoing medical condition and disability as confirmed by LCPS HRTD under the ADA. At this time, I will entertain a motion that Ms. Corbo's remote participation be granted for an ongoing medical issue.

[00:00:46] So moved. Motion made by Ms. Polifco. Is there a second? That motion will fail for lack of a second. Ms. Corbo, would you like to request remote participation due to a personal matter tonight? No, thank you.

[00:01:03] Medical suits advice. Okay, thank you. We'll now move on to item two on our agenda, disclosures, beginning with Ms. Sheridan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:01:29] Specifically, as a school board member, I'm eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest.

[00:01:47] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the Clerk of the School Board for five years. Thank you. Mr. Mahedmi. Thank you, Chair. As a member of the Lowron County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding employee salaries, the budget, and our health insurance, and any of the discussion that may include or affect salary and benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:02:12] Specifically, I'm enrolled in LCPS health insurance and may be affected by any potential changes to health insurance. These subjects include thousands of employees, well in excess of statutory three employees whose interests may be affected, of which I'm included. i can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest this disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years thank you as a member of the louden county school board i make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding employee salaries the budget and or health insurance and any other discussion that may include or affect salary and

[00:02:51] benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically, I am enrolled in LCPS health insurance and may be affected by any potential changes to health insurance. These subjects include thousands of employees, well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest.

[00:03:11] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. We'll now move on to item three, our consent agenda. Is there a motion, Mr. Mahedby? Yes, Chair. I move to the Lowndes County School Board approve the items and posted and the agenda posted as a consent agenda on the board docs. Second. Seconded by Ms. Sheridan. Any discussion?

[00:03:38] Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion to approve the consent agenda, please raise your hand say aye. Aye. That motion will carry unanimously of board members present with Morris, Corbo, Okadek Bay, and Beatty absent for the vote. That will bring us to item four, our work session, and we will start with the Office of the Auditor General Annual Audit Process.

[00:04:03] Mr. Woods.

[00:04:16] Good afternoon, Chair Sorokin, members of the board, and Dr. Smith.

[00:04:34] Today's presentation is on the audit process in my office. I know we don't have time to go over all the things we do in my office, But I thought explaining the audit process would be a good start. Next slide.

[00:04:52] Although every audit is unique, the process in how we perform each audit is similar for most engagements. The information outlined in the following slides is intended to familiarize you with the audit process here in the audit, internal audit.

[00:05:10] Next slide. Selection. How do we determine what to audit? Well, other than special requests, which can come from the board, the administration, or other stakeholders, The performance of most audits is based on the annual audit plan.

[00:05:31] Other factors that can increase the department's chances of being audited is not returning information requested by an auditor general. If information needed to rank an area's risk is not received, we may audit the area to get the information. Next slide.

[00:05:51] So here we have a diagram of how we determine audits. To develop the audit plan, we solicit input from board members, senior management, principals, and staff identifying risks. Using this information, we develop an audit universe, which we use to determine the highest priority projects for the upcoming fiscal year.

[00:06:13] Once the projects are selected, they become the annual audit plan. And I'll just give you a moment to take in the diagram. And when we perform the audit risk, we also try to link those audits with the one LCPS strategic goals and to help us identify how we can achieve those goals through audit.

[00:06:36] Next slide. Here we have the annual audit plan for 2024. The plan includes six audits we have identified that you see now. The audits will be performed in sequential order, one through six, beginning with our audit of special education staffing needs and requirements that we hope to kick off first half of August 2023.

[00:07:03] I'll give you a moment to take a look at the rest of the listing.

[00:07:15] Next slide. So now that we have selected an engagement, it's time to perform that audit. As you can see here, here's a list of the audit steps that we will perform during the audit that I will briefly discuss over the next few slides.

[00:07:34] And if you'll see, it has two sections, the planning and the examination. Next slide. At the beginning of each audit, we will notify the auditee of our intent to audit the area of control.

[00:07:53] When we notify a department of our intent to audit, we will try to give them two weeks' notice to let them prepare so that they are ready for our entrance conference. The entrance conference is a formal kickoff meeting held with the department heads, directors, or supervisors of the area being audited.

[00:08:11] In this meeting, the focus is to discuss the scope and objectives of the audit, as well as give the client an opportunity to share any concerns they may have. An example is that if they have any areas they'd like us to look during the audit, we'd hope that we can include those into our areas of audit so we can cover those areas as well.

[00:08:38] Next slide. After we conclude our entrance conference, we move into the planning phase. During this period, we will review any pertinent information submitted by the department, as well as research applicable policies, external laws and regulations, design frameworks, and best practices.

[00:08:59] During this period, we also performed meetings with the auditee, also known as walkthroughs, to gain an understanding of the department's processes and procedures. Once we have met with the auditee and performed our preliminary reviews, we will develop our audit program that will detail the procedures that we will perform during field work.

[00:09:23] Purpose of field work is to complete the audit program testing steps to determine the adequacy of various internal controls. It is during these tests that we would determine whether the controls identified during interviews are operating as described.

[00:09:41] Next slide. It is during our fieldwork we identify and develop audit findings. An audit finding is defined as an area of potential weakness, risk associated with a policy violation, inadequate performance, financial statement, or other problematic issue identified during the audit.

[00:10:06] It is not unusual for one or more deficiencies to be identified during the audit. We will address each finding and provide a recommendation on how to correct the issue in the audit report. Once fieldwork is completed, we will draft an audit report, which will include findings and recommendations for improvement.

[00:10:27] Once we have the draft report, a copy will be provided to management, who will then have an opportunity to comment on the content and discuss any concerns they may have. It is during this phase there may be instances where a finding is removed from the report prior to issuance based on management responses where the Auditor General agrees with management's assessment that the finding is no longer valid.

[00:10:55] The draft report will also contain a place for department responses to be included in the final audit report. Next slide. Once we have completed all our work, met with management to seek concurrence on the final audit findings, we will issue our final audit report.

[00:11:21] Final issuance of the report will be distributed to department heads, their cabinet executive team leader, the superintendent, and all members of the school board. The final report will also be posted on OAG's webpage for public viewing.

[00:11:36] On some occasions, a follow-up audit may be performed to verify audit recommendations and plans of actions have been implemented. Once we complete a audit follow-up, it will be a supplemental report to complement the final audit issue.

[00:11:53] That concludes the audit process presentation. I welcome any questions and discussion from the committee. - Okay, thank you for the overview. Board members, questions or comments regarding the presentation?

[00:12:10] Ms. Reeser. - Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the presentation and to the audit committee for getting us started. It's nice to have the department come on board and I just wanted to thank you for starting with special education.

[00:12:25] I think that's something that I'm hearing across the board from various stakeholders, whether it's families, educators, people in the community about that being top of mind. So I'm very eager to be able to hear back from you what you find in that arena.

[00:12:42] Thank you. - Additional questions? - I guess the one I have is the audit plan that was presented with those six initial topics. I assume that that's been discussed in committee. Has it been approved by the committee yet?

[00:13:00] Is it coming to the full board for approval, or what's the process envisioned to be there? Thank you. That's a great question. So originally, the plan, I think, where Mr. Wood sort of talked about, originally the list was about 20 items, I think.

[00:13:16] And I think overall, going through working with the staff leadership and the committee, we came to this sort of top six on that. So last night we had a committee meeting where the committee voted to send this sort of thing out to the full board.

[00:13:34] I mean, that was the motion made. So I think the next step would be, I guess, we need to determine as far as we bring it back as an information item and full board wants to vote on it. I mean, we have the opportunity to do that. But as a committee, we did approve last night to, I think, the motion was made to send it to the full board.

[00:13:50] And that was the motion made. That helps. Okay, thank you. So, I think my personal opinion, I don't think we delegated the authority down to the committee to finalize the plan. That type of thing would generally have to come up to the full board.

[00:14:06] I don't think it would need to come as an information item again because we're doing that tonight, but I do think it would be appropriate, absent other board direction, I think it would be appropriate to bring it back for action next time or consent if the board wants to formally approve these so that the team can get started.

[00:14:23] But any other discussion or thoughts regarding that? Ms. Reeser. I concur, and I think that it should come back for action so that the board members who are not present tonight have an opportunity since it is the first time something like this is going through to weigh in.

[00:14:42] Additional comments? Okay. So thank you again for the overview, and we will bring the FY24 annual audit plan back for action during our August 8th meeting. All right, thank you. We'll now move to 402 from the Equity Committee.

[00:15:05] summary report of racial incidents and hate speech in schools. Ms. Sheridan. I believe Dr. Ellis is coming forward. And I'm not sure everyone has met our equity supervisor, so maybe get a good introduction.

[00:15:22] Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Sheridan. So this evening I am joined by Shahid Muhammad. He is our new equity supervisor, and I believe it's the first time that several of you have met him.

[00:15:41] And he and I will be sharing information that was shared at the June equity committee related to racial slurs and hate speech in our schools thank you to miss research for requesting that this information be shared with the full school board I do want to point out that there are two presentations in board docs the first is the exact presentation that mr. Muhammad shared with the equity committee earlier this month the second presentation the one that you'll be seeing tonight is identical except that the data has been updated to reflect incidents through the end of the school year so through June 8th that had been reported so with that

[00:16:19] we can move to the next slide dr. Ellis which is then as far with the two files which is the one we want to look at the one that is entitled presentation and it has June 8th in the title and that includes the data through the end of the year one of them has presentation the other one has the date I assume it's the one with today's date on it would be the right one yes okay thank you I will I will make sure those titles are clear in board docs sorry about that so before we start with the

[00:16:53] data we wanted to provide a little bit of background starting with the promise as we described in the equity committee for lcps staff and students so we'll talk first about the promise and then about the problem which is the use of racial slurs and hate speech in our schools and then we'll talk about the protocol and the prevention measures that we can take and have taken to prepare our staff. So first we'll turn to the promise, which you have all seen before on the next slide. Our promise is for the best possible learning and working experience for

[00:17:28] students and staff. It's found in our LCPS commitment to equity. As you all know, this commitment to equity was developed through community input, through collaboration with stakeholder groups and input from students and staff. And as you also know, equity is one of our core values in our strategic plan. Next slide, please. So despite the promise of our commitment to equity, the reality is that racial slurs and hate speech are occurring on our school campuses and this is counter to the respective and inclusive, respectful, excuse me, and inclusive

[00:18:05] schools we are trying to create and sustain. So while many and perhaps most of our students experience positive interactions, many students do not and we will continue to work on this until every student has a welcoming and supportive school environment.

[00:18:23] And so now I'll turn it over to Mr. Muhammad to walk through the data and some next steps that we're taking as a team. So good afternoon, Chair Sorokin and school board members and Dr. Smith. We'll start talking about the data compiled for this year with racial slurs and hate speech on slide five.

[00:18:44] So there were 890 total incidents this school year compiled, classified by 13 types of racial slurs and hate speech. The use of the N-word African slurs that were directed towards African-American students and slurs that were general or racially offensive language were the top three types of incidents this school year.

[00:19:11] There is a theme of those three categories being the top number of incidents at all three levels, elementary, middle, and high school. Next slide. We look at the elementary incidents.

[00:19:28] In total, there were 281 elementary incidents compiled. Next slide. Middle school incidents are where our top number of incidents came from, the number of 451 total incidents.

[00:19:49] We do know that there has been some transformation and changes with middle school students in terms of immaturity, growth, And coupled with those peer pressure and attention-seeking behaviors that possibly could speak to the higher number of middle school incidents.

[00:20:11] Next slide. High school incidents, we had 158 total. Again, the use of the N-word, slurs targeting African-American students, and general racial incidents or offensive language were the top three.

[00:20:31] Next slide. So in February, I believe, at the Equity Committee meeting, there was a presentation that really talked about incidents from Quarters 1 and 2. Quarters 3 and 4 are included here to give perspective on the total number of incidents for the year.

[00:20:51] But just for your knowledge, there were 130 quarter 1 incidents, 175 quarter 2 incidents, And then as you can see, 294, quarter three, and 262 in quarters four.

[00:21:13] Next slide. The next set of graphs outline incidents by school level. Next slide. So we wanted to give a perspective of the number of incidents by month as well as quarter.

[00:21:32] And as you can see, there was not a lot of variants from September through January, but then in February through May, there was a spike in incidents. With May being the highest, I'm sorry, March being the highest number of incidents with regards to the number of instructional days.

[00:21:59] 21 instructional days in March and 180 total incidents. Next slide. This next slide presents the number of incidents by school level at the elementary level, and it is also outlined by quarter.

[00:22:21] So 281 total for the year. Next slide. Similar graphic for middle school outlined by specific middle schools, 451 for the year with the highest amount in quarter three.

[00:22:52] Next slide. And then at the high school level, 158 total incidents and it is broken down by the high schools. I want to remark there were no incidents reported from any of the virtual programs.

[00:23:22] Next slide. Information on where these incidents are occurring. At the elementary level, they mostly occur in the classrooms, cafeteria, and on the playground at recess. For middle schools, the classroom, physical education class, and the bus.

[00:23:45] And in high schools, classroom hallways, and then also at sporting events, stadiums, gym, and many incidents occurring over social media platforms. Next slide. That's this slide.

[00:24:13] So what are we doing about it? Next slide. The ongoing work is continuous to address these incidents. There has been quite a bit of information about the disciplinary processes, consequences at schools, the social-emotional learning component, and the use of the UMHT and restorative practices in order to increase the level of education for students and also to understand the level of harm that is occurring.

[00:24:45] That has become an ongoing topic during principal meetings and also training and professional learning. Since February, when the racial slurs and hate speech incidents were updated at the equity committee meetings, there have been more ongoing meetings with administrators, particularly principals, APs, and deans to provide updates on the reflective lesson part of the protocol, which is how do we provide resources to schools that will be able to support staff in educating students and working with students through these very tough issues.

[00:25:24] Central office leaders, professional learning sessions have occurred on incidents and how to better support our principals. There's been a series of sessions hosted by the Anti-Defamation League that provides scenarios and ongoing strategies and information to help school staff.

[00:25:44] We also had school visits, multiple by the Division of Equity team, Also with our culturally responsive instruction unit to work with equity leads and their teams in creating more proactive work. I would want to give kudos to the equity leads and their work with administrators as they are highly immersed in the work.

[00:26:08] And there has been quite a bit of increase in unity clubs at the elementary level and affinity groups at the high school level. I will turn it back to you, Mr. Sorotkin. We're happy to address any questions.

[00:26:30] - Thank you. Board members, discussion or questions? Ms. Reeser. - Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the presentation. I just have a couple of questions. With regard to the data tracking, is there any, either aggregated or disaggregated, I'm not sure what the right way to put it, is information about how many of the incidents are the same or recurring, the same student having an issue?

[00:27:07] - So this year we were not tracking the specific students and sometimes it's difficult to track specific students, particularly if you look at one of those slides with the bar charts under general racial incidents or offensive language, or any of them really, it could be a word that's said in a large group of people, for example in the cafeteria or in the gym, it can be difficult to identify a specific student.

[00:27:39] So sometimes it's not possible to identify a specific student. And even when it is, our reporting did not report repeat offenders. We have received that question a couple of times now, both in the equity committee and from board members and from equity committee members as well as principals.

[00:28:00] So we are having conversations with DDI are working on improving our tracking so we should be able to to better report out on that in the future okay how how do we know that our methods of trying to address the underlying issue that's leading to this type of behavior are effective it's a great question i'll start and then i'll ask mr muhammad if he has anything to add so the answer is i don't think we necessarily know at this time because we're so early in the process this is the first year that we have a full year

[00:28:36] of tracking this data we have received positive feedback from the equity leads from principals and administrators who participate in the conversations who have the resources they they have asked for additional resources as mr mohammed spoke to on the last slide in terms of the reflective lesson part of the protocol so we've heard feedback on that and we're making revisions on that so I think we have a long way to go in terms of measuring the impact of these strategies and I don't know if you would

[00:29:12] add anything to that yes I would agree with Dr. Ellis sentiments there has been quite a bit of utilizing the data to inform practices in many schools where there has been actual student leadership groups and the school leaders getting together to really address problems of practice. Specifically sat in on one of those meetings at J. Michael Lunsford Middle School this year. There are quite a bit of other schools that are utilizing their student

[00:29:47] leaders to really address the problem. And I think that we will be able to see a more comparative analysis of for your question in terms of growth as these actions continue throughout the year next year okay could you give me an example you said we've been able to use the data to improve practices could you elaborate a little bit what does that mean exactly so over the course of the year we have just use on J Michael Lunsford as an example because I brought I mentioned the name of the school but they've been looking at their data and really talking about it

[00:30:25] amongst their staff in terms of what are trying to drill down to what are the root causes that maybe there has been more recidivism at that school with specific students or just the numbers in general and they really wanted to find out what is causing this so that they can take some actionable steps in terms of programming or interventions initiatives at the school so I mean by taking the data and not just reporting it but utilizing it for future steps that could improve the situation. Are there any future steps that you could share with us that were decided

[00:31:02] upon? No, not that I know of because that work is still ongoing and that hasn't been shared with our office, but there has been talk about making sure that we continue and follow up as the school year starts this year. Okay, so I have a question and then a request.

[00:31:25] Dr. Ellis, when we first started implementing the data collection, was there a bigger plan in place? If that was just step one, had the division already identified what step two, three, and four might be?

[00:31:45] Or have we at this point? Thank you for that question. So we had steps to include capturing the data, gathering the data, sharing out publicly with the data, And using the protocol for responding, and part of the protocol is actually capturing the data.

[00:32:07] The rest of the protocol is being followed. I think that a couple of next steps that have emerged out of this first year are more specific conversations with school leaders, tightening up the actual collection of the data.

[00:32:27] are some improvements we can make in the actual tool that we're using to collect and as I mentioned we're working with DDI on on tightening that up I think that will lead to more consistent tracking full transparency you'll see some schools have zero incidents listed and I would venture to guess that doesn't mean that zero incidents are occurring so we have been working with school leaders to ensure that when an incident is brought to the attention of an adult in the building that it is tracked I think that's probably why there's a little bit

[00:33:04] of a spike in the second half of this year just just to be transparent about that so I think having more than one year's worth of data will be really helpful in addressing those next steps I think that that is a really helpful perspective the fact that maybe the data collection has gotten better and that might be one of the reasons why we see a change in numbers and I do think it be helpful to know if some of these incidents are repeat offenses by by the same student or adult and while the rest of the data collection improvement that

[00:33:39] you're pointing out is important I think it's equally important to have goals with what we're what we are doing with this data and it I don't know if there's a plan at this point to go back to committee and I know it's really important that we try to do our work through the committees before we come to the board so that it's fully ready for the board to take some action with so I am NOT sure what's been discussed in committee but I think it would be helpful to have some kind of an update as to what the plan is to do with the data and if you have an idea for when that decision might be made it would be

[00:34:19] perhaps helpful to know when we could expect to hear from you again sure so I I am happy to work with Mr. Muhammad and Ms. Sheridan on how and when we can bring that back to the equity committee. We would probably need, obviously, at least one meeting, perhaps two meetings, but we could certainly have something in the fall for the board to consider.

[00:34:42] And if that's all right with the committee chair, I won't make a formal motion. Okay. Thank you very much. Additional questions? Mr. Madby. Thank you, Chair. so i think my my question i was going to start with i think you kind of touched on because there's some some schools there's no reports at all and and some might be under reporting as well so i could see i mean for a couple quarters but now we have four quarters so is there a plan in place in terms of their under reporting or you know i think i even look at i'm not going to call eagle

[00:35:20] ridge out or john champ i mean which has you know numbers are not consistent with other school numbers i'm not saying that they need to have higher numbers but like a high school of a size only has one reported for the last year so what's what steps i mean are you taking to ensure that there is you know again the reporting um if they're under reporting happening what are we doing to address that yeah thank you for that question um i'll start and and offer mr muhammad to jump in but so so yes we we have noticed the same thing we've had conversations in administrator

[00:35:56] meetings with all principals in the room at the same time about the importance of tracking and collecting this data. And we have also, as Mr. Mohamed shared on the last slide, worked with the administrators in central office, specifically the level offices, on how they can better support the principals to make sure they have the understanding of what the protocol is, the resources they need. I do think streamlining the actual reporting process next year will help

[00:36:28] a lot. Feedback that we've given is that it's difficult because it's a separate reporting form from, for example, the typical way they report discipline. So merging those two things I think will help streamline the process. And also we will continue to emphasize the importance of doing this. It is a regulation and it's important to track this data. And I appreciate the board understanding that these numbers are not necessarily 100% reflective of what's happening

[00:37:05] in schools. So we will continue to work on that. I mean, I think with Ms. Reza, I think we talked about where I've shared this, I think first step is acknowledging it and then tracking the data. At the same time, where I'm coming from, and I know this is my fourth year, I at the same time don't want to have a hip reaction, and I want to qualify that.

[00:37:29] We need to have a strategic response to these issues. But I think what I heard was that schools are developing plans. So what's at the administration, at the division level, knowing this, besides the school sort of addressing it, what do you see that we need to address?

[00:37:52] as a board as an administration so that's a little bit broader question but before i can answer that i think coming back to the data too i think it's you know i look at the data and for example is like general racial incident offensive language and then obviously there's a spike i mean i'm looking at middle school and the n word is just you know again huge number of incidents that are happening and then so on so forth so you have defined where it's happening have you gone to the next sort of level to say the context of how this is being used because one thing we can

[00:38:29] say like well we need to address it and we got to discipline we get but what's where is this happening why is it happening have we has a question come up in terms of are their kids are really you know demeaning kids by using these words and and using the slurs where what is the context when the kids one thing i think this example i think you shared about like in cafeteria somebody yelled out or something. Those are outliers, but I'm presuming that you have such a strong, I mean, heavy numbers that many of them are being tracked because somebody used it,

[00:39:05] somebody is identified, I think going back to Ms. Reese's question. So what is the context? I mean, have we gone into understanding that? Because without really understanding why these, not that I'm saying that, you know, there's good reason, there's no good reason for using any of that, but what is the context where the kids are coming to this is bullying it's what then we can have a strategic way to address it versus just saying well they use this word now what so um first before i turn it over to mr muhammad i i really appreciate that question

[00:39:41] because i think it's very important for us all to think about and that's why um the central office provides the resources and the training but it's really up to the principal and the other leaders in that building to address each situation in its unique context.

[00:40:00] Context matters, right? And any use of a racial slur and hate speech is inappropriate. However, the response may be different based on the context. And so for us to say at the central office that any sort of racial slur or hate speech gets this response um i think would would remove that context that's really important to have to have around uh the the incident so that's why it's really important for the administrator at the school level to be to be involved and to know the context um i'm sure mr muhammad has more to

[00:40:38] add and could even give an example if that would be helpful but i i do think that having the the the school-based administrators aware that context matters. They're keenly aware that context matters, right? So they take the resources and the tools that we provide them and apply it in the context.

[00:40:59] - Yes, and I would say that from the descriptions that have been included in the documentation of the incidents, it really shows that there's a large investigative process that takes place even when calling schools and talking to administrators on specific incidents.

[00:41:17] We find that they are handling each incident as an individual incident because all the incidents are unique. They involve students that, for various reasons, are actually making these slurs or offensive language.

[00:41:37] And so with that, it is very complex, but the schools are doing a really good job of the investigative piece to really determine what the next steps would be. I think in terms of the narrative that's being created in the schools is really about what these schools are doing to, A, make sure that it is communicated clearly that this is not who we are as a school, to condemn those incidents no matter how they came about, and then work to make sure that they are looking at the alleged offenders or the alleged victims,

[00:42:17] and also those that might be creating these incidents on how to improve or better those situations for those individual students. So it is a tiered approach and it's multifaceted. However, each individual incident is really handled as an individual incident and the background and context for those students involved are taken into consideration.

[00:42:43] There's quite a bit of also work in terms of making sure that there are appropriate measures and steps for the healing process for students. And we know that, I'll give you a perfect example, there are students who are playing, they're saying that they're creating, they're joking around with each other, but we do know that when these slurs and words land on specific adults and students, they could have a very different impact.

[00:43:12] And so making sure that students understand that first and foremost, that within our schools, in this division that we just cannot condone it or tolerate it, but we also do not, we also make sure we communicate effectively with those students that this is something that we can work on, we can get better at, and we can eradicate.

[00:43:33] So I think the schools are heavily involved in that process, and sometimes those situations are pretty extensive in terms of the investigations. - Thank you. And my final question, I think, you know, I'm glad we're working, I think, in your slide different sessions with like for example with ADL but I think looking at the majority of the incidents are related to you know African American have we reached out to the African American community to engage with them in in the similar ways and how to approach to get their feedback or to make them a partner in terms of how we solve this has there been any sessions discussions with those

[00:44:11] groups so the equity office communicates with and has very strong relationships with with many organizations um anti-defamation league is just the most recent example um i i agree it's important to make sure we're hearing from all of our stakeholders and and there are um many many organizations that can be that can be helpful additional questions ms polipka thank you mr chair we talked about this at the may equity committee i remember and

[00:44:49] i brought up the fact that part of the issue i think we have here in with regard to collecting data on these incidents is that we're not finding out what the function of the behavior is. So why, and Mr. Mahedovey touched on that earlier, why are these issues happening? Why are these, why are we seeing an increase in certain, across certain schools, across certain grade levels?

[00:45:12] And I think it's, I think one of the, one of the issues we have and why we're not able to specifically pinpoint and say, here's how, here's exactly how we're going to solve this problem is because we don't fully understand why it's occurring. So we know that it's happening, according to the data that you presented, it looks like it's happening largely across unstructured settings, is what I gathered from that data.

[00:45:32] So it's happening at times when kids are, or students are not in a structured setting, which also leads me to believe that when those instances are occurring, it's most likely students that are reporting. If I'm not incorrect, I could be wrong about that, but I'm going to go ahead and guess that in those cases, there probably isn't often a lot of adult supervision or adults who are, and there could be, but if we're looking at an unstructured setting, in most cases, I would think that it's going to be the students who are reporting those instances.

[00:46:04] So this brings me back to the original point that if we are not identifying the function, why that behavior is occurring, it's gonna be very difficult for us to find effective measures to decrease that behavior. That behavior is unacceptable across the board.

[00:46:20] under no instances should we be tolerating it, my concern is that we're not finding what those causes of the behavior are. So I wonder if we've ever looked at having any of our behavior specialists, behavior analysts, potentially unravel some of that data when we're talking about context to be able to understand what it is that's happening before the behavior, what that behavior is, and then what's happening afterwards, because the consequences do matter.

[00:46:51] And a consequence can be a positive reinforcement and it could be punishment. But it just depends on what those consequences are and how they're shaping that behavior. So thank you for that feedback. And I will say that I think that a lot of the incidents do happen in unstructured areas.

[00:47:12] And in all three levels, the top area is the classroom. So in a lot of situations, it is the teacher hearing it in the classroom. So I think it's both. And to your point about behavior specialists, I know that they are involved at the school level and we have not involved them in a conversation at the division level.

[00:47:33] And I think that is a really important next step that you bring up. Okay. I've got some questions and I'll go back around for a second round. So I remember we got a presentation on this just, I think it was just about a year ago.

[00:47:49] I think it was towards the tail end of last school year. So in the data today, I see kind of a rolling 12-month counts, but not year-over-year data. So how do the numbers this year in FY23 compare to where we were a year ago?

[00:48:08] No, we do not have the comparative data from the last year to compare it to. So this data would be the baseline data for this year. There have not been any other data discussion points with last year's data that we're aware of, that I'm aware of.

[00:48:30] I remember getting the data last year, so it may not be sliced and diced exactly the same way, but at least the monthly total should be available to compare this data to. Yeah, we can do that. Okay, thank you. And I remember that because I remember it was the same exact spike last year where quarter one and quarter two were relatively flat, I don't want to call it low, but lower, and then all of a sudden, January and February, you saw this huge spike for the rest of the year. So it seems like that same thing is happening again. I don't know what kids are doing over, you know, winter break that's causing this when they

[00:49:06] get back, but it seems like I've got two years of data now to show that this is significantly worse in the second half of the year than it is the first half of the year, and I'd like to understand why the the number of incidents being higher in middle than in middle school as compared to high school I don't remember that in the past although I just may not be remembering it so is this a new trend or what's going on that's causing the spike in middle schools this is a new trend and I don't

[00:49:40] know the answer to the why I don't have any definitive answers to the to why that there's spike with the middle school. However, we do know that as adolescent learners, especially with the levels of immaturity and then also wanting to, I guess, be liked more in terms of attention seeking behaviors could be one of the components for the increase. But in terms of a definitive

[00:50:18] answer of why, I do not have that answer. Okay. And then I had the same comment as my colleagues about the underreporting at certain schools. While I would love to be able to laud those schools for having less incidents, when it's so far below the mean, it's just not credible data.

[00:50:38] So it sounds like your teams have already been digging into that with the school administration teams to get to the bottom of that, but that's something I'm hoping to see improvement on as we go forward. And we can't, you know, we had this presentation about a year ago. We're having it now. We can't wait another year to get answers to some of these questions.

[00:50:56] It needs to, I don't know if the committee is the right answer, but whatever, there needs to be discussions about how to move forward from here and be able to make headway on this problem. I'll go back to Ms. Reeser and then Mr. Madby. So I think my colleagues touched a little bit on some of the follow-up, but just to summarize or to maybe even echo some of it, just so you understand that it is consistent among all of us.

[00:51:27] I hear all of us talking about the Y, which is why I asked you if you could please bring it back to us. I'm imagining that there is a bigger plan, right, and collecting the data is the beginning of the plan. But what happens next, what are the steps that we're going to take?

[00:51:43] And while I appreciate the school versus central admin response being key to actually tailoring what needs to happen to make improvement, I think we need to know how we're going to collect information about the why.

[00:51:59] If it's from conversations with the students, if it's based on teacher or staff reporting at the schools. I think it's probably a question that the community has as well. We want to try to understand beyond just the one example you gave about some people thinking that they're being cool or funny.

[00:52:18] What makes them think that is a way to be cool or funny? And we could guess at that, but I think we wouldn't. We don't, the board would like to have this information continue coming back to us at this level and not just to committee. Also, I wondered about the sessions with the Anti-Defamation League.

[00:52:39] Who was informed and invited to that? Where did they take place? And are there going to be further sessions available? Yes, all principals at all three levels were informed and we were sharing that information with their staff members as well as our equity leads in the in the division and those sessions were done virtually. Okay and were school personnel invited to attend when you say the principal shared it? Yes that's correct. Are there any plans to continue to have sessions like that? Yes there are and I think there are also many

[00:53:19] other ideas to create more sessions in terms of addressing some of the issues and concerns that have been brought up today. One of the things most definitely would be the recidivism issue with repeat offenders and racial slurs and hate speech.

[00:53:35] - Because I think there is a difference between that and someone who makes a bad choice and chooses not to do that again. Sorry, I think I interrupted you. - No, and just how do we plan our program for those students that are repeat offenders and kind of drilling down to what everyone has been talking about in terms of root causes.

[00:53:58] We just wanna make sure that we have consistent meetings where we're having that kind of dialogue and the monitoring piece has to be in place as well in the schools for those students. And making sure that whatever program or intervention is put in place that is adequately addressing what the needs are and that it has the frequency or the duration necessary to really document some changes in the behaviors.

[00:54:25] When we talk about this, it's really behaviors, and not students, and so we really wanna just, we'll really take a look at that, and how are we involving the family in the process, as well as any other types of programs or interventions could be put in place, such as mentoring.

[00:54:46] - I really appreciate hearing you say that it's the behavior and not the student, and that we are involving the families. My next question was going to be whether families, or even the board could be invited to any virtual trainings. Perhaps, even if it can't be, every family in the school division, if there are families of students could be invited, and I don't know if other board members would be interested, but I myself would be interested if there is another ADL session virtually just to educate myself about what process it is, what they teach, and to become better informed.

[00:55:24] And I think I heard you say that maybe in the next meeting or two of the equity committee, just to address Mr. Sorokin's urging that we address this in a timely manner, that I just wanted to point out that staff had said that already. Thank you.

[00:55:41] - Mr. Madhavi. - Thank you, Chair. So I think maybe the timing of it, and you can correct me, Dr. Ellis, I think what was presented in the last year was slide number 11, where I think they just had the data from elementary, middle, and high school.

[00:55:57] And I think in somewhere in March, the same time I think you were doing the equity where at least maybe similarly requesting the breaking down of the data by schools and by, you know, the way it's presented now, I think that's a different way that we received versus what we got last year.

[00:56:14] So I think, anyway, so that's, I think, the context of where this thing came about. So, you know, the question of the why that came up and I heard from, I mean, obviously it's loud and clear from the fellow board members and Dr. Tyler sitting there too in the back because we have the data the data the contextual data is there the whether it's how it's happened how schools are addressing I don't know if you can pull a tag cloud based on the data that you collect along with the incidents to analyze to say well what's the context you know is it really happening based on

[00:56:51] friendly plays or and so on so forth I mean I kind of bring back click I'm you know this is my same thing like the CRM moment like the click I've beaten up quite a bit and I still love to see click being used a lot more it's a business analytics data analytics tool where you can feed all the data in and then run you know pull the data out as best as you like to use it so I'm sure it's there and you can do a lot with it and if you haven't I'll ask you to explore you know even if let's say DDI is not

[00:57:29] I would just tell you go and look on YouTube and just watch click videos and you can be so much well prepared about the right questions you can ask DDI for because I know it's I'm a technologist there's always a pushback and a pull happens but I think that's where you're going to use because if you already have the data you can put all the data back into the system and then run run the system to find out you know what's things can bubble up to see what the issues are and and then and go about at least understanding it.

[00:57:59] I'm not asking you to solve it, but just understanding at the moment of it. So that'll be my offer here, thank you. - Additional questions? - Ms. Okadekbe. - Thank you, Chair. I, first of all, I wanted to apologize for walking in in the middle of your presentation.

[00:58:19] I had a day job work commitment that I could not get out of this evening, but I did take the time to watch the June 1st meeting recording, and thank you to Board Member Sheridan for just highlighting that in terms of the rich conversation that occurred during the committee meeting for us to listen to and appreciate you bringing this forward and just reiterating what you've heard from other board members.

[00:58:43] This is a very important thing for us to address and I appreciate you bringing forward the data as well as information about what that looks like in practice in the schools when you're having those conversations about intent and impact.

[00:58:59] and I think ultimately those conversations and expressing that can be very impactful to people to understand the impact of words and how that is felt by others and hopefully that does change things and overall there's more work to be done but definitely appreciate hearing more details about how the expectations are set on the ground in the schools and in classrooms around what we're expecting in our community for how we treat each other

[00:59:36] because one would hope we want to treat each other well. And this is a big part of it where we're not doing that. And I appreciate the work that you're doing, so thank you. - Additional discussion?

[00:59:54] Okay, seeing none, thank you for the overview and looking forward to further details and improvement once we get it. With that, we'll move to 403 for an item on the policy feedback process that was requested - Thank you, Chair.

[01:00:12] So my hope today was to just initiate a conversation and some thoughts about ways in which we could enhance what we do when we essentially provide feedback to the feedback.

[01:00:27] So this came from some conversations I'd had outside of the formal meeting agenda for LEAF, where I had talked to some parents about their, some frustration around feeling like They had provided feedback, but they didn't know what happened to it.

[01:00:45] So I had some conversations with other board members and with staff just thinking about how we can provide more information to our community members who are providing feedback around where that feedback went.

[01:01:03] We've had some recent examples where I feel like we've done a very good job of providing that feedback. So there are some policies up for action this evening. I call them the 50/40 series because there's three of them all together.

[01:01:18] But staff did a tremendous job in terms of providing feedback and at a summary level providing information about thematically what types of feedback were provided and what we were able to do with that. I believe also in the MOU there were some call outs to specific feedback that was received by specific stakeholders that we were able to incorporate.

[01:01:46] I know that there's a lot of time and effort that goes into that. I think it's also just helpful, and I'm not suggesting that point by point we're getting back to individual people who've commented and said, we were able to incorporate suggestion A, but not B, because B is in contradiction to state law, but just at a summary level.

[01:02:15] So I wanted, and I know I had a great conversation with Mr. Slevin earlier today, so I know we spoke about this, but I know there are some thoughts that you have on this topic, and then I just also wanted to open it up for other board members around ways in which we can incorporate that two-way communication around the feedback that we're getting to be able to demonstrate how this feedback is making its way into ultimately the final policies

[01:02:50] that we're passing up here, thank you. - Thank you, board members, discussion, Ms. Reeser. - Thank you, Mr. Chair, so thank you for the opportunity to talk about it. I think I have seen in the committees that I'm on the committee chairs address the feedback, which is my memory of how we intended when we began this process to have that go forward.

[01:03:18] I also think that individuals should call upon their school board member or their at-large member, Ms. Korba represents everyone and is very responsive to ask if they're not getting an answer back from the committee chair. That is our job, is to advocate for an answer to our constituents, and many of us will help any constituent that reaches out.

[01:03:41] So that would be my recommendation to anybody who's wondering how to get an answer back about a particular piece of feedback, would be to go to the committee members, the committee chair, or your school board members. Additional discussion?

[01:03:58] So I think it's worth remembering it was not so long ago we didn't really have a formal policy review process at all. And that was something that's been put in place in bits and pieces over the last two years or so. So the fact that all of our policies are going out to our advisory committees and are being posted publicly on the website for review and that there's a forum for the public to fill out or advisory committee members to fill out, That's all new and something that didn't exist before a couple of years ago.

[01:04:35] So I think it's certainly true that committees are doing it differently right now just based on how individual staff is handling it or how the committee chairs are requesting that information or the committees are requesting that information, whether it needs to be more standardized than it is right now across committees.

[01:04:58] I think that's kind of why you asked for the item in the first place. I'm certainly interested in feedback on that to see if there's anything we can do differently or use something as a model for everyone else to follow. Additional discussion? Dr. Smith.

[01:05:16] Yeah, no, I appreciate the opportunity to talk through this a little bit. I know we continue to make changes and improvements. We speak with our advisory groups frequently in terms of how we can continue to get better. And I believe Mr. Slevin is prepared to speak a little bit to some of the changes we've made this year and some continued changes we'd like to make in terms of this process.

[01:05:36] Thank you, Dr. Smith. So as you know, the policy feedback process runs through the chief of staff office supporting cabinet when they're working policies through committees. So this spring, a few examples of where we received feedback from the community on the on the feedback process and made some changes is, for example, MSAC had some concerns about how policies were being run through committees when it came to feedback.

[01:06:04] And they asked for perhaps some more explicit reasons for change, for the policy change being laid out in the information item. So you all are familiar with the structure of board docs where you have rationale and background. And they said, hey, can you all add a little bit more verbiage into the description so we can understand why this is coming?

[01:06:25] Is it part of the cycle? Is there a change in Virginia code? Can we give you some more background? Can we give the community more background on why the policy is changing? And so we've asked cabinet members to do that. We've tried to be responsive to that feedback. We've also received feedback related to frustration going through the process of giving a lot of feedback when the policy is based in state code.

[01:06:49] And so if they knew it was in state code, they wouldn't have gone through all the effort of giving that feedback. And so we've tried to communicate more clearly where in policy it's state code and as much as we want to hear your feedback, there's not much we could do with it. So just know that before you put the time and effort in.

[01:07:05] And then also just the process of providing feedback, we've tried to make that easier. We use Google right now. We couldn't in the past allow for a PDF to be uploaded, so we've changed the system so that people have an easier time of uploading documents. You all get documents from MSAC and SEAC, for example.

[01:07:23] We're exploring the possibility of using Let's Talk for policy feedback, so we're always revisiting how we're getting community engagement when it comes to our policies. A couple things we're thinking about going into next fall is trying to give the community a little bit better of an idea of what policies are in the queue.

[01:07:42] We have a general idea of what policies we may want to be bringing to the board throughout the school year. So trying to publish a tentative list with a broad timeline, knowing that things are gonna happen, we're not gonna get through all the policies. But if SEAC or MSAC knew we were gonna look at these policies in the first quarter, they could potentially prioritize giving some feedback and thoughts some initial thoughts on that and then there's also an opportunity to look at how we're putting information into board docs in information items like if a policy goes for an information item and then comes back in action

[01:08:17] could we add something in the action item a few comments about how what kind of feedback we received and what if any changes were made so we don't have anything firm when it comes to that change but those are some of the things we're thinking about based on some feedback we're we're getting from the community on this process.

[01:08:38] - Ms. Okedekpe. - Thank you, Chair, I appreciate that. And again, I think also speaking to the earlier comment, this is a new process and so I think the natural maturation of this is responding to how is it going and it seems like this would be in line with that.

[01:08:56] And I think the more that we can proactively communicate out instead of expecting the stakeholders to come back and have to seek that information, I think that that would be helpful. So again, not really asking for a particular action or conclusion to this, but did want to raise this as a discussion item with the rest of the board.

[01:09:18] So thank you for the opportunity. - Any additional discussion on this topic? - Seeing none, we have a little extra time before we have a closed session at time certain 5:30. So we will get a head start on a couple of our information items.

[01:09:36] Without objection, starting with 1201 from the HRTD committee, revision of policy 7726, military leave. Ms. Okedekpe. Thank you so much. So policy 7726, military leave, was an information item at the May 25th HRTD meeting.

[01:09:56] And the policy was made available for public feedback through the LCPS website and then was an action item last week in HRTD. The update is very basic. You can see on the red line version, essentially, we've added FEMA as another entity for which an individual may have to take military leave.

[01:10:22] Thank you. And was this a standard five-year review? It looks like the last update was in 2017. I believe, yes, I do believe this was, yes, I'm getting the head nod from Ms. Boland. This was part of the standard review, and then just staff reviewing realized that FEMA was left off, and there are certainly individuals who need to take leave for their work with FEMA.

[01:10:46] Okay, thank you. Board members, any questions or discussion regarding the changes to this policy? Seeing none interest in placing this on consent for our next board meeting. Okay, we will place this on consent for our August board meeting.

[01:11:04] And the next item is 1202 from the Legislative and Policy Committee, Revision of Policy 2430, School Board Agenda. Ms. Reeser. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This policy came to us on June the 7th, and it was posted for community feedback, which is attached.

[01:11:25] It was requested by the School Board Chair to revise some language to paragraph A. So I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Sorokin so he can speak to his requests. Thank you, Ms. Reeser. And just to be clear, I requested that staff review the language, but the recommendations were from them.

[01:11:43] I did provide a couple of recommendations, but the language they used, I think, was largely from Prince William School District for what they chose to implement. The changes are to really to try and encourage board members to use our standing committee structure for first hearing of items to the greatest extent possible, while understanding that it is still sometimes necessary or desired to bring items directly to the board because of time sensitivity or because it's a board operations item.

[01:12:19] So this would include that language about encouraging the board to use standing committees to follow the same process that we use for information requests from staff, where if a information request is going to require staff to do a significant amount of work, it requires the endorsement of two additional board members.

[01:12:44] And so this would follow the same process where board members asking for an item to be placed directly on a school board agenda would require that same endorsement of two additional board members. And I think that's largely it for the changes.

[01:13:03] - Ms. Reeser. - So I'll add a little bit of discussion we had in committee this did come out of committee with a 3-0 support of mr. Sorokin mr. Beatty and I we talked a little bit about the different ways that items can come to the full board typically they do come up through committee and the way that you can have something go to committee is just a chair can put it on so that's one board member anyone can request the chair to put it on in which case you basically have the consensus of the person requesting it and the committee chair so that's two board members but right now an item can come directly to the board with no time for board members or

[01:13:42] staff to really prepare it fully with just one person requesting it and we felt that it was important for there to be some consistency in like the bar to entry before taking up the entire boards time or staffs time before something comes to a full meeting that hasn't gone through committee that doesn't take away the ability of one individual board member to have something heard by the board it just would require it to come up during new business for example or or for the committee chair to agree I'm sorry for the board chair to agree that

[01:14:18] it should be put on the board so there remains the ability of just one board member to put something immediately before the board with or without the consensus of the school board chair by using new business so it is really just a minor change if you look at it in the grand scheme of how things can come so that would leave the opportunity just to kind of reiterate and add to committee chair can bring it up through committee a single board member can ask a committee chair to bring it up through committee a single board member can make a motion to refer it to committee a single board member can request the board chair to

[01:14:56] put it on a board chair agenda a single board member can bring it up during new business I'm not sure if I've missed anything but I think those are a variety of the ways that that it could come to the full board currently there have been a few instances when a board member and this is actually examples from a board previous to ours would have staff do days of work hours of work and nobody else on the board was supportive of what it is they were bringing forth so it was very cumbersome and a waste of resources for the staff and that's why

[01:15:36] the informal process that Mr. Sorokin described came to be and we felt that while we have this as an informal process it was important to have a formal process as we discussed it. Lastly when something is added to the agenda with just four or five days before seven days I'm sorry before a meeting staff still has to prepare for a full presentation or the gamut of questions that could come up without having had the benefit of it going through committee and knowing what kind of research or data to prepare for board members so it puts them at a disadvantage in actually meeting our needs and for the other board members to

[01:16:15] be able to to be able to get their questions fully answered with research and data that has had the benefit of a little more time did I cover everything okay miss okay thank you chair and thank you also for the additional context on this one I think some of my concerns were just but I would like to understand a little bit more on the mechanics of new business.

[01:16:48] So if an individual board member, and I've brought forward new business, but I'm just trying to understand with this change in policy how that may or may not change the logistics for that. So if an individual board member brought something up through new business, how does that then work its way?

[01:17:12] Are we then, after that, looking for support from fellow board members to make that a more formal agenda item for a future. So if you can just walk through that. Sure. So new business can take a number of different formats. It's usually intended for things that just are time sensitive and there wasn't time to get it on the agenda. So it could be as simple as during new business saying, hey, I intend to bring this forward for action during a future meeting. It could be getting the board's consensus to bring an item forward, or it could be something that really is time

[01:17:47] sensitive where the rules need to be suspended so that action could be taken that night if it's an emergency action or something else that the board desires to dispense with the normal rules and take action on it during a first reading. And if it was a situation where there was a request to bring something forward for a vote, then it's regular board rules where it's not just the two additional people, but it's the majority of the board members present in order to get consensus to bring it forward right

[01:18:24] I think I don't know well I so normally by following like our backstop is Robert's rules of order so if we don't have a policy that describes the way that something happens then we just follow whatever Robert's rules of order says so in this case if we're saying that it takes three people to get something on the agenda.

[01:18:51] I think that would hold even if it's being brought up in new business for the first time unless there's suspension of the rules or something else going on. That would be my read of the way the changes are being proposed right now. Ms. Reeser.

[01:19:09] I wanted to respond with another example. Like when we were discussing the data on racial slurs and hate speech, and I just turned to Ms. Sheridan and asked if her committee would follow up, and she said yes. It could be as informal as that.

[01:19:25] So I see this as a specific prescribed way that something can happen, but it doesn't take away from the ability for it to happen in other instances.

[01:19:42] I think the most important thing, and we've seen this working across the board, is that if you communicate with your fellow board members, then exploring possibilities is not something that it's difficult to get two other people to agree with you on.

[01:20:01] But if there's truly something that nobody else on the board is going to take action on, then we have to take a look at whether that's what we want our limited staff resources having time spent on and how quickly can they turn that around before a meeting instead of having it go through committee.

[01:20:25] - Mr. Madby. - Thank you. So again, Ms. Ogadekbe, I don't mean to pick on the item that we had on the agenda tonight itself. I mean, I think that's a perfect item to go to a communications committee meeting, for example, to look at feedback and how we can do that versus coming to the full board, for example.

[01:20:45] So I use that as an example where that could have been addressed at the committee level, perhaps, versus, I mean, again, they didn't require any of the staff time and so on and so forth, but it could have been engaged and worked through that. And lastly, I think, as we talked about new business, I mean, that's also a great opportunity that we haven't leveraged as much as we should perhaps just to bring in awareness I mean in absence of just bringing to the full agenda all the time but to be able to have a discussion if you feel like you want to bring something up and share with the fellow board members that's a

[01:21:22] perfect opportunity that's available to Robert's Rules to make that happen as well so I'll just so anyway just using example for tonight's forgive me Mr. David. Additional discussion Ms. Polifko.

[01:21:39] - Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm looking for more information about why we're making this change right now, considering that what I heard earlier from Ms. Reeser is that we are not in a current position on the board where we have any issues with staff being requested to undertake an extreme amount of work.

[01:21:57] It sounds like that was a problem in the past and not a problem now. So I'm trying to understand why we would take a policy that appeared to me to be working just fine, which stated that any items submitted by a board member shall be placed on the agenda, and now we want to change that policy to require a board member to seek two other people to even permit them to be able to put something like that on the agenda in the first place. To me, it's going to slow the work down. It's potentially stifling voices because sometimes an item is added to the agenda as an information item because a constituent

[01:22:33] reached out about it or because people need to have their voices heard, and our job here as board members is not just to be heard amongst ourselves and the staff that we work with, but it's to be a voice for the people that elected us and even the people that did not. That's what we're here for. So to me, putting a policy like this into place or even considering putting a policy like this into place is really important that we think about the unintended consequences of a policy like this, because right now things might work really well for certain members of this board and not work so well for others. And I fully recognize that I'm completely in the minority here. I am

[01:23:11] absolutely 100% in the minority. However, that could change and other people could end up being in the minority. And to me, there is absolutely no reason and is completely absurd that one person on this board would not be able to bring up an information item that they feel is important to share with the public. And I will also add that I have not once asked staff this year when I have had information items added to the agenda.

[01:23:36] I have not once asked staff to produce hours of work or really to produce any work because I've been able to sit up here and speak to board members and speak to the community about issues that were important from, for example, administrators or teachers or just citizens or parents who reached out to me who I had discussions with.

[01:23:56] So the discussions that we have as board members are not always limited to the board and they shouldn't be limited to the board. It's not about us. It's about the people that we represent. So I have huge concerns about a policy like this. It is going to tie hands. I'm telling you, as one board member, I've been up here with one hand tied behind my back for this entire term, and I would never support, even if I had a majority up here on this board, I would never support limiting the voices of the people that I may not agree with or the people who may have a different affiliation than me because I think each one of us has the opportunity, should have the opportunity at any time to make our voices

[01:24:36] heard because it's not just our voices. It's not my voice. It's the voice of the constituents. Yeah, I'm happy to address that. So, thank you. I thought the question was directed at me as the person who's representing the committee and presenting the policy. So, I completely agree with you. I don't think that it does that. I don't think it limits anybody's voice. You have absolutely every opportunity during new business to bring up anything that you want to bring as well as during board member comments so there have been issues throughout the time that we've

[01:25:13] been on the board with staff being tasked to work on things that the board did not support the example i gave of the previous board was just to give that one example but actually that's not even the reason for the the timing is not related to anything in particular or anything special beyond just constantly thinking about putting processes in place that make board governance defined instead of just in practice so there's there's nothing really special to this it is just memorializing what we've typically try

[01:25:47] to do is a board starting in 19 2019 when mr. Morse as the then outgoing board chair gave us an orientation about how it should be done so this was a a process that he first spoke to and that we've just gotten around to memorializing because there was such a long period of time where we were dealing with things that were more time sensitive than board governance. But there were many other things in LNP that didn't exist that we put in place as time has gone on. And I think that there are other boards that do it this way.

[01:26:20] So I think that that's why the example came back to us in committee. Additional discussion? Ms. Palipka. - Thank you, Mr. Chair. So if we are saying in this policy, or if we are essentially pushing forward a policy that is going to be amended to say that a board member needs to receive the approval or the endorsement of two other board members in order to even put an information item on the agenda.

[01:26:50] What we're saying here is that school board members are not even in a position to be able to have a discussion in public, in front of their constituents, unless they have two other board members who support that specific information item. That is absurd.

[01:27:06] - I don't, Mr. Chairman, may I respond? - Go ahead, Ms. Richard. - I don't think that that's what we're saying. I don't agree. You can have a discussion about any item that you want during new business. And I think that other people can respond and join in the conversation at that point as well.

[01:27:25] It's not limited to just one way. - Ms. Polifco, and then after this, we'll have to go into our closed session. I just have one final comment, and this is what I will state. We could bring up new business, but that doesn't make it an information item.

[01:27:43] That means it's bringing up new business. In order to get an information item on the agenda, a board member would need two other board members' endorsement in order to get that done. Once an information item is put on the agenda, it then can become an action item, and I fear that that's the concern here. The same thing can happen for new business.

[01:28:00] If you have discussed it in new business... Ms. Reeser, you don't have the floor right now. Okay, could you please... Ms. Polifco, can you finish your remarks? I would like to finish my statement. Yes, sorry. I'm not finished talking. Under no circumstances would I support a policy that would tie the hands of any school board member to be a voice for their constituents.

[01:28:25] Once an information item is on the agenda, it can then become an action item, and that requires board members to have accountability. Thank you. Ms. Reeser. Thank you. Ms. Polifico, I fully agree with you, and that's why I'm trying to let you know that that is the same.

[01:28:43] If you discuss something during new business, you can ask for it to come back as action. You can even take action that night on it, but you can ask for it to come back as action the next time. And that just may be something you weren't aware of before, but I completely agree with you. I do not see this as limiting a board member's ability to do what you said.

[01:29:04] So we will bring this back for action during our next board meeting. not consistent no no mr. ahead of you so at this time we have a we'll go back to item five our closed meeting at time certain 5:30 is there a motion mr.

[01:29:19] Mahedvi yes chair I moved to the Loudoun County School Board recess this public meeting and enter into a closed meeting person to section 2.2 3712 for the code of Virginia for the following meeting with staff required by code of Virginia 22.1-294D regarding the reassignment of a specific employee pursuant to Court of Virginia section 2.23711A1. Second. Seconded by Ms. Sheridan. Any discussion?

[01:29:50] Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. That motion will pass unanimously of members present with Morris, Corbo, and Beatty absent for the vote. We're now in closed session.

[02:37:23] By Ms. Sheridan, is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please raise your hand and say aye. That motion will pass unanimously of board members present with Morris Corbeau and Beatty absent for the vote. That will bring us to item eight on our agenda, which is the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem.

[02:37:43] Both are being performed today by the Parafas Saxophone Quartet. Am I pronouncing that right? Parafas? Okay, which is Freedom High School's premier chamber ensemble. Under the direction of Jonathan Schiffler, the ParaFast Quartet has performed locally at school concerts, Tri-M Music Honor Society events, and solo and ensemble recitals.

[02:38:08] The group features Brandon Shen on soprano, Seth Alexander on alto, Stephen Matichak on tenor, and Jake Dominguez on baritone. So at this time, I will ask everyone to please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem.

[02:38:25] thank you so much for that performance and for spending a little bit of your summer break with

[02:40:38] us we really appreciate it on to item nine on our agenda which is the acting superintendent's report dr smith all right good evening board members my pleasure to bring you tonight's acting superintendent's report with some good news around the division and a couple of operational updates first i'd like to share that the office of communications created one more final look at the class of 2023 graduation complete with words of wisdom from school and school leaders

[02:41:13] These graduation videos were shared on LCPS social media channels and have outperformed graduation social media from the last year with over 31,000 impressions and 30,000 engagements from our community. Let's take a moment and watch this video. Congratulations to the class of 2023.

[02:41:34] As you leave Loudoun County Public Schools, remember that along with a top-notch academic education, you have learned to be resilient and flexible. I hope that you will take these characteristics and the unlimited possibilities that your education has prepared you for and turn them into yet-to-be-realized opportunities for tomorrow.

[02:41:58] Life moves too fast if you let it. In your never-ending quest for knowledge, always be sure to take time to stop and appreciate the now. Do not let the promise of the future rob your present experiences, friendships, and memories. Take time to appreciate where you are now. Take it in and enjoy the ride.

[02:42:17] Now that you've made it to graduation, you have figured out the how. How to manage your time, how to study, and how to make good choices. Next, you get to figure out the what. What are you passionate about? What gets you going in the morning? And what makes you happy?

[02:42:34] Once you've figured out what's important to you, just make sure to never stop pursuing it and never let it go. Don't wait for the right time. There will never be the right time. Just time itself and what you choose to do with it is what matters. Go out into the world with your head up high with confidence and take up space in whatever you do.

[02:42:55] Be unapologetically yourselves. To the class of 2023, always believe in yourself and know that you are enough. Don't ever discount yourself and don't overcredit others.

[02:43:10] Always believe in yourself and make a meaningful contribution to the world. We have worked hard and waited so long for this day to come, and here we are.

[02:43:32] Needless to say, our high school years were more than a challenge. Yet, we have survived. No, we have thrived in spite of these challenges.

[02:43:52] Some might argue that turning 18 is the magical doorway to adulthood. But I believe it is graduating high school that marks this mysterious transformation.

[02:44:08] Class of 2023, be brave. Find opportunity in the middle of difficulty. Step out of your comfort zone. Believe in yourself and pursue your dreams. Class of 2023, there are many things you said yes to.

[02:44:28] However, there are many more things you can say yes to in the future. So take every opportunity you have, and together, we light the way.

[02:45:24] Thank you for taking those few moments to help us remember and continue to celebrate and recognize the class of 2023. The Office of Student Services, along with partners INOVA and the George Washington School of Nursing, launched the Mobile Health Clinic last week with a dedication ceremony that featured a ribbon-cutting, refreshments, and tours of the mobile clinic. This exciting new initiative will help to provide LCPS families with access to free physicals and wellness checks with the ultimate goal of facilitating school enrollment.

[02:45:49] Throughout the summer, the Mobile Health Clinic will visit seven schools in the Sterling area, and I encourage you to check out the website to see the full schedule. I am thrilled to announce tonight that Briarwoods High School, Emmerich Elementary, Loudoun County High School, and Waterford Elementary are receiving the Exemplar Performance Awards from the Virginia Department of Education.

[02:46:11] This awards program recognizes schools for exceeding state accreditation standards, narrowing achievement gaps, and making progress towards educational opportunities for all students. Briarwoods High School, Emmerich Elementary, and Waterford Elementary received the 2023 Highest Achievement Exemplar Award.

[02:46:29] As you may know, Virginia has over 2,000 schools, and only 48 received this recognition. Loudoun County High School received the 2023 Continuous Improvement Exemplar Awards, and 93 schools in Virginia received this recognition. Congratulations to these schools, leaders, students, staff, and communities.

[02:46:51] Heritage High School, Smarts Mill Middle, and Trailside Middle received the No Place for Hate designation from the Anti-Defamation League. The No Place for Hate initiative helps students, staff, and communities work together to make schools welcoming and inclusive spaces. Students and staff shared that the No Place for Hate initiative helps prevent bullying and cyberbullying and teaches that each person has the opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

[02:47:17] Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to join with LCPS partner, the Loudoun Education Foundation, and the Loudoun First Responder Foundation to say thank you to our first responders who support our schools, staff, and students. More than 150 first responders from the Leesburg Police Department, Loudoun Fire and Rescue, Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, Percival Police Department attended the lunch at Heritage High.

[02:47:42] Many thanks to our Assistant Director for Career and Technical Education, Computer Science, and Community Connections, Renee Dawson, and her team for spearheading this initiative and coordinating all the details. Also, a big thanks to Principal Jeff Adam and his staff for manning the grill and making sure everyone had a wonderful lunch. While students are away for the summer, LCPS is beginning the phased installation of a geothermal water source heat pump system at Ashburn Elementary. The project kicked off this week with the installation of 96 geothermal wells. This project will help keep LCPS at the forefront of energy savings and energy efficiency and will ensure that Ashburn

[02:48:20] Elementary has a reliable and energy efficient heating and cooling system. Similar systems have been installed at Aldi and Banneker Elementary schools. These systems are reliable and effective in addition to be cost-saving for the county. Loudoun County High 12th grade students and Evergreen Mill 4th grade students teamed up to write and illustrate history books. The mother-daughter teachers Tracy Cody, a Loudoun County government teacher, and her daughter Catherine Hicks, a 4th grade teacher at Evergreen Mill started this collaborative exercise in 2017, which is grown to include additional Loudoun County government classes. The fourth grade and twelfth grade

[02:48:59] students collaborated via Google Meet and in person to develop the books, which focused on the fifth grade history curriculum. The senior students said that the project heightened their interest in government and history, and teachers noted that the fourth grade students enjoyed the collaboration with the older students. It's exciting that the books are now available for purchased on Amazon with proceeds going to the Evergreen Mill and Loudoun County High School libraries. The J. Michael Lunsford Middle School Guitar Ensemble made history by being the first ever middle school to receive an invitation to perform at the Virginia Music Educator Association

[02:49:34] 2023 Professional Development Conference. The VMEA Conference Selection Committee chose Lunsford Middle Guitar Ensemble on the direction of music teacher Jared Eastridge through a blind audition of submitted recordings from ensembles from across the Commonwealth.

[02:49:50] Invitations to perform are extended only to the very best performing ensembles in Virginia. Congratulations to the student musicians and their teacher. Congratulations to Maya Session, a fifth grader at Rosalie Carter Elementary, on being named the Virginia State winner of the 3M Young Science Challenge.

[02:50:10] She presented a project on portable allergen testers. The 3M Young Science Challenge features outstanding innovations for young scientists that utilized the power of science to improve the world. Maya is one of 24 state winners. Lincoln Elementary School hosted a very special event over the weekend, Helen Cook's 100th birthday.

[02:50:33] Ms. Cook, an LCPS cafeteria manager, a former LCPS cafeteria manager, began her 50-year career of serving lunches in 1941. Mrs. Cook, who lives just next door to the school, said that Lincoln Elementary is like a home to her, and she's grateful for all who came to celebrate.

[02:50:49] Lincoln Elementary students and staff, as well as many well-wishers, helped Mrs. Cook celebrate the great occasion. Also, big congratulations to Jordan Miller, a 2018 Loudoun Valley graduate who was drafted by the Los Angeles Clippers as the 48th pick in the second round of the NBA draft.

[02:51:08] Earlier this year, when Jordan's team, the Miami Hurricanes, played in the Final Four, we shared good luck messages with Jordan from Banneker Elementary and Blue Ridge Middle, the schools in which he attended. These schools and all of LCPS now wish Jordan the best as he begins his new and exciting chapter.

[02:51:24] Now we just have a couple of quick operational updates. During the last board meeting, staff provided an update on the 2023 LCPS Design Challenge. We honored four students whose submissions will be informed the next steps, and we heard our board discussion. Since that meeting, staff has updated the Design Challenge website with a summary and video to include one submission selected as the cover of the division guidebooks and resource guides, two submissions selected to use on collateral materials, six submissions selected for a note card package, five submissions selected for display throughout division, and three submissions selected for reference and inspiration

[02:52:02] and possible division rebranding. In addition, staff has begun to establish an industry leaders focus group, and during July, invitations will be sent to a group of community leaders and dates will be scheduled for review and feedback regarding logo and branding submissions provided by students, as well as additional considerations presented by our professional in-house graphic designer.

[02:52:22] In August, staff will compile a post-review discussion summary to share with the board at August 8th regarding next steps. And last but not least, I'd like to share with you this summer, you'll notice when you come back in August from your recess, LCPS boardroom upgrades will be finalized.

[02:52:40] These upgrades will include LED panel installations to replace the projectors and screens, and an additional LED panel in the back of the room, voting boards and buttons, and audio level balancing. The team has already completed WebEx integration for video playback and no audio loop back for WebEx attendees.

[02:52:59] We replaced the legacy AV and broadcast system and the wireless presentation capability. The project was paid for using county PEG funds. The funds are generated from the county cable franchise contracts, and it's important to note that these funds can only be used for upgrading or enhancing broadcast capabilities, and they're also limited to capital or facility-related purchases.

[02:53:21] So I want to just share that in advance so you know you'll be expecting that when you come back in August. And that concludes my superintendent's update. Thank you, Dr. Smith. We'll now move to item 10 on the agenda, which is public comment.

[02:53:38] I thank the public for engaging with the school board through the public comment process. The school board welcomes comments from Loudoun County residents and community members and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system. Speakers must limit comments to the time allotted.

[02:53:56] Based on the number of speakers tonight and the agenda this evening, all speakers have been allotted three minutes each for public comment. Please be advised that speakers who miss their time slot will not be called at a later time. All audience members shall maintain civility, decorum, and respect for the functioning and dignity of the school board at all times.

[02:54:14] Please remain seated unless arriving, departing, speaking at the podium, or during a break. Violations of civility, decorum, and respect include shouting heckling jeering applause or other noise which disrupts or delays the meeting obstructing speakers from being able to see the school board and vice versa interrupting speakers attempting to speak when not called to do so by the chair and approaching a speaker or otherwise attempting to intimidate disparage or distract a speaker staff member or other meeting attendees speakers should refrain from vulgarity obscenities profanity or other like breaches of respect nor may speakers criticize target or attack individual

[02:54:53] students during public comment. Speakers should communicate those concerns to their school principal or an appropriate school official. Additionally, complaints regarding division employees should be directed to the school principal or an appropriate school division official. Speakers should face the dais and direct their comments to the school board.

[02:55:13] Per LCPS policy, members of the school board will not answer questions or respond directly to the public during the public comment period. Violations of decorum or civility by any meeting attendee may result in the chair directing staff to remove the attendee from the remainder of the meeting. Repeated or persistent violations of decorum or civility by the audience may result in, on the decision of the chair, public comment being tabled until a later point in the meeting's agenda, limiting the number of attendees in the meeting room during public comment for safety reasons, or the public comment period ending for the evening. Copies of materials for board members

[02:55:51] should be given to the public information officer in the media box at the back of the boardroom, prior to the start of the meeting. Please provide 12 copies of materials. Under no circumstances may a speaker approach the dais. The public is reminded that access to school board meetings is available through LCPS TV on Comcast Channel 18 and Verizon Fios Channel 43.

[02:56:12] And the live stream of the meeting may also be viewed on the LCPS website. So for fourth Tuesday meetings, we usually start with virtual speakers, but we have no virtual speakers signed up. So we'll move on to our nine in-person speakers. The first speaker is Brenda Bengston, to be followed by Sandy Sullivan.

[02:56:39] Enjoy summer. Are we surprised by anything after two years of shouting, cursing, preaching, misinformation, and even threats? Recall when someone said, we have too many religious holidays, after the calendar was changed to recognize diversity.

[02:57:01] Incidences of hate speech have increased dramatically, especially use of the N-word. Yet, we remember that disparaging text asking, what are blacks superior at? So, how many of us were shocked to read this quote from a Moms for Liberty newsletter recently?

[02:57:23] He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future, citing Hitler, and attributed to a 1935 Nazi rally speech. mark pitcavage with the anti-defamation league says this quote is used by conservative christian groups as a warning of what they experience as indoctrination they use it as a way to get people's attention really people need to use adolf hitler quotes to get a point across is it any wonder that moms for liberty's use of the quote was seen as tacit endorsement for hitler and his

[02:58:02] beliefs. The reactions. Your Hitler rally cry is repulsive. Our community will not be undone by your poison. This is an act that lays bare the threat they are. They have no business influencing our school boards, our legislation, or our student curriculum. No group that quotes Nazis should be anywhere near our children or have any influence. It is time to stop acquiescing to them and make clear that their hateful rhetoric will not be tolerated. Their version of educating our children

[02:58:41] includes teaching them lies and encouraging them to have zero empathy for others. Recently, Liberty University's senior VP of communications, Ryan Heffelbein, said, quote, education is evangelism. If you don't control education, you cannot control the future. Stalin knew that.

[02:59:08] Mao knew that. Hitler knew that. We have to get that back for conservative values, unquote. I believe that democratic values, an educated populace, DEI and SEL, civil and human rights, and liberty and justice for all have greater impact. Years ago, a supervisor shared this philosophy, my favorite, paraphrased from Plato. Do not then train youth to learning by force and

[02:59:41] harshness rather direct them to it by what amazes and amuses them thank you sandy sullivan to be followed by daniel brubaker good evening i'm sandy sullivan an elementary school teacher who currently serves a member of the loudon education association as their president as you vote to reconcile the budget this evening i continue to wonder what other reductions to the budget were considered aside from reducing proposed increases in leave for your staff where were other from what

[03:00:17] other areas where possible reductions considered. School board members, your employees look forward to you examining other possible methods to reconcile the budget as you continue to support our students and honor the work and devotion of your employees. Thank you. Daniel Brubaker to be followed by Abby Platt. Here are the words of President Franklin Roosevelt. All government

[03:00:53] employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people. Now, FDR was a racist Democrat who unconstitutionally confined American citizens of Japanese descent to camps during World War II.

[03:01:29] I quote him merely to demonstrate that even a Democrat and proponent of involuntary servitude could recognize that public sector unions are wrong. I bear no personal animus against any of tonight's wearers of communist red in support of unions, including the speaker who stood here before me.

[03:01:49] But I completely oppose their efforts to perpetuate fraud against the taxpayers of Loudoun County by stealing our sovereignty by binding us to an agreement with a union. Since repetition is the key to learning, I will reiterate this evening why any collective bargaining agreement for LCPS is malfeasance against the citizens.

[03:02:08] First, determining hours, pay rates, bonus structure, if any, school calendar, hiring and discipline and firing protocols, working conditions, expenditures, curriculum, benefits, and all other aspects of the operation of Loudoun County Public Schools is, within the confines of federal and state laws, a power that belongs to the citizens of Loudoun County.

[03:02:30] We exercised that power through you, our elected school board. When we elected you, we gave you the power to act on our behalf, but we did not give you the power to give away our power or to place any limits on it. None of you have the right to give away the sovereignty that belongs to us, the citizens.

[03:02:47] You cannot cede any portion of our sovereign authority to an unelected entity, especially not to a private business like the Loudoun Education Association. Collective bargaining is a fraud against the taxpayers. And one other thing, you are, for the moment, our public servants. Since most of you took office in 2019, you have greatly expanded the administrative budget in both real and relative terms, even as you have increasingly operated out of the public view and behind the veil of closed meetings.

[03:03:14] I believe there were seven closed meetings in the decade before you took office and 57 since you have taken office. Bloating of the administration is a drain on the budget that harms teachers and others. Overuse of closed meetings should be a concern to the public who deserve transparency. Thank you.

[03:03:30] Thank you. Abby Platt, to be followed by Anne Donahue. The beginning of today's meeting started with an hour-long discussion about hate speech, which data demonstrating by the numbers presented here shows that there is one occurrence a day in about 98 schools.

[03:03:59] No discussion about failing math or reading scores or SOL scores, but hate. That's more important than the education of our children. Why is there so much focus on LGTB hate that isn't part of the data discussion that was included?

[03:04:14] Or is it not an issue? Back to our studies. This is precisely why collective bargaining will not help our students. We cannot afford to continue to pay contractors, which essentially LEA is. Put that money into our studies.

[03:04:31] Imagine how much tutoring could be purchased with $3.3 million. Based on the average teacher salary, that's almost 60 additional full-time teachers. But instead, the LEA would insist on hiring just 13 admin for the same amount.

[03:04:50] How can you focus on the LCPS mission to empower our students if you don't have the money to do so? There was also a policy discussion about a provision that in practice will act to stifle the voice of board members. If equity is one of the core values in the strategic plan, and the stated goal is to ensure that everyone is afforded a welcoming and supportive environment, why would a policy to limit participation be entertained?

[03:05:22] Why is Corbo kept from participating, and yet earlier in the meeting, this board encouraged the community to reach out to her? That's terribly disingenuous when her ability to represent us is stifled. please do the right thing work to provide our children with a rigorous safe education get back to the things that actually matter stop chasing hate stop creating division in our schools and

[03:05:50] amongst yourselves thank you and donahue to be followed by michael r good evening mr chair mr vice chair and board members thank you for your service to our students and our community and for this opportunity to speak with you i'd like to talk to you this evening about proposed policies 50-45, 50-46, and 50-47 regarding the selection and criteria and challenge process for materials and supplemental library resources.

[03:06:27] I'm a Loudoun County resident and proud parent of two LCPS elementary school students, and these policies will affect my family for the foreseeable future, along with tens of thousands of other families in Loudoun County. I agree unequivocally that there is a need for clear guidance that is consistently applied throughout the division regarding what material may be deemed inappropriate in our schools on what basis and how to challenge the appropriateness of certain materials. However, I believe censorship is warranted only in very extremely rare circumstances and is most often not in the best interest of furthering comprehensive and well-developed education for our students.

[03:07:03] This board made a promise to provide equitable, safe, and inclusive learning environment to all students. In order to live up to that promise, to provide comprehensive education to our students, and to protect the mental health of members of our minority and marginalized communities, it's necessary to make available to students materials from a wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds. This is a very difficult line to walk, and I applaud your revisions to these policies and the care with which you have so obviously thought through the issues surrounding these topics however i would make two suggestions regarding potential edits to proposed policy 5047

[03:07:41] first in part a1 at lines 9 to 10 it defines the person who may bring a complaint as a instructional staff parent of student enrolled in lcps or student age 18 or over enrolled in lcps i would suggest respectfully that the board consider adding some language limiting the challenge to same school level as the challenger which would be consistent with the language in the policy in parts b1 and c5 which restrict certain actions to same school level that is parents of elementary

[03:08:17] school students or instructional staff at elementary school can challenge books or materials in elementary schools but not necessarily every other part of the school community similarly parents of middle school students or instructional staff in middle schools could challenge materials in middle schools, but not necessarily every other portion of the LCPS system.

[03:08:37] I suggest that this would make the policy internally consistent and ensure that those most affected by the presence or absence of the materials at issue are the ones who will be most likely to be heard. Secondly, policies 5045 and 5046 refer back to 5055, but 5047 does not, and I would suggest that this board consider adding language to 5047 as stated in 5055, that materials may not be censored or designated as sexually explicit solely based on sexual orientation or gender identity of characters therein.

[03:09:08] Thank you. Thank you. Michael R. to be followed by Megan Lockwood. I can thank this board for at least being consistent. Consistently misleading, sneaky, and consistently not serving the Loudoun County constituents. At the last minute, Mr. Sorokin put on the agenda for today policy 2430 which essentially says that any minority member of the school board

[03:09:46] can't bring things on as information items, unless they get two other people to agree with them. This is done at the last meeting of the year that's very poorly attended, and it will be approved at the first meeting of the new year that is very poorly attended. So thank you, Mr. Sorokin, again, for sneaking something in so that people don't know what's going on, because most parents have already checked out for vacation. I want to focus my time on a book that's in LCPS. Thank you to Ian Sorokin, Harris Mahedovey, because they were leading the Curriculum and Instruction

[03:10:23] Committee, and a special thank you to Ashley Ellis and Neil Slevin for saying that these books are necessary in our school system. Doing it. Oh, the title of the book is Queer, the LGBT Guide, Ultimate LGBT Guide for Teens, and it's currently in middle and high school.

[03:10:43] Doing it, just as there are many different types of relationships, there are a gazillion ways to have sex. Not all gay men have anal sex, nor do lesbians like oral sex. Not all trans guys wear dildos. Not all trans folks are uncomfortable with their partner touching their birth genitalia.

[03:10:59] It's a rainbow, darling. You need to figure it out for yourself. Touching and rubbing. Genital stimulation can come from any body part. You may stroke his penis, insert fingers into his anus, or insert fingers into her vagina. Oral sex. Oral sex is when you put your mouth on your partner's genitals.

[03:11:17] For guys, it's called fellatio, or giving him a blowjob. For girls, it's called cunnilingus, or going down on her. Using your tongue is usually a good thing, teeth not so much. Anal sex. Any kind of penetrating sexual activity involving the anus is typically called anal sex.

[03:11:37] This can involve penetration with the penis, fingers, or a sex toy. The anus has a lot of bacteria that, when spread elsewhere, can cause lots of problems. If you're going to use a sex toy for anal penetration, be sure to use one made of silicone because as long as it doesn't have electrical components, it can easily be cleaned and disinfected.

[03:12:00] Just boil it for five minutes or run it through the dishwasher. Yes, this book is in middle and high schools. Thank you, Michelle Picard, for purchasing the Diverse Books Collection under the wire for over a million dollars without any parent input.

[03:12:16] Thank you, Mr. Mehedavi. Would you want your daughter to read this? Mr. Sorokin, would you want your kids to read this? Do you want a child trying to figure out how to have anal sex with your daughter? Yes, it's disgusting, and you should all be disgusted.

[03:12:32] Thank you. Megan Lockwood to be followed by Yolanda Lemon. Thank you, Mr. Chair, distinguished board members.

[03:12:48] I would also like to thank you, Mr. Rivera, for exposing my children who are near that against their will or mine. For someone that speaks about parents' rights, you just violated my choice to make that decision for my children. My name is Megan Lockwood. I'm a parent of three current LCPS students, but I'm speaking to you today as an LCPS employee.

[03:13:12] I'm here today to express my serious reservations about the current revisions to policy 5045 and the new subdivisions of that policy. Division-wide guidance on handling challenges to instructional materials is necessary and wise, but as written, this policy has some gaping holes that need to be addressed.

[03:13:29] I strongly urge the board to send the policy back to committee to fix flaws with overly broad generalization of the affected materials. We have heard many complaints about administrative overhead and burgeoning costs that do not contribute to better learning outcomes for our students.

[03:13:45] This well-intended policy without clearer and more specific language will cause administrative logjam, increased cost, and more time spent by both teachers and administrators on non-learning tasks, and limit the ability of teachers to respond to individual student learning needs.

[03:14:01] Imagine for a moment that you are watching a football game and there has been a rule change that allows either coach to challenge any play. How do you think that game is going to go? Now imagine anyone in the stands can challenge a play too. The game grinds to a halt, fans start screaming at each other in the stands, and the players are just sitting on the benches waiting to play while the referees try to handle all the challenges.

[03:14:23] Even if most of the challenges are bogus, play still stops until the matter is decided. This is not hyperbole. The policy also leaves no room for teachers to change tactics, rearrange lessons, or respond creatively if students are struggling with particular lessons. How, you ask?

[03:14:39] If everything is subject to challenge and must be mapped out far in advance so that there is an opportunity to review and potentially challenge, teachers cannot lesson plan and respond to on-the-fly situations that arise in the classroom. Many, many times teachers are reworking and changing plans a day before or morning of because maybe those two class periods on shape transformation wasn't enough and moving on to the next lesson needs to be postponed.

[03:15:02] Well, you may say that's ridiculous. This policy only applies to sexually explicit content, and that's not applicable to much. Well, this language is broad enough that it can and will be interpreted in ways I believe we are unprepared to handle. Who will review the applicable material?

[03:15:20] I found that out spending months in an English department, the teachers. When policy 5055 was about to be implemented, the novels assigned to a school to be reviewed were read and the content rated by teachers. Additional uncompensated job responsibilities.

[03:15:37] Thank you for your time and your service to the community. Thank you. Yolanda Lemon to be followed by Andrea Weiskopf. Good evening.

[03:15:56] My name is Yolanda. I am a founder, I am the founder and president of Christian Educators Empowerment Group. I am an educator, a concerned citizen, and most of all, a mother. I am here to deliver a message to this board. Protect the children.

[03:16:13] We all have been given a responsibility that supersedes all other professions. To protect the children that God has placed in our hands to oversee from day to day. Every school board member, superintendent, chief of staff, personnel of the district office, administrator, teacher, office personnel, custodian, cafeteria worker, security officer.

[03:16:39] Everyone working for this school district has been given the mandate, responsibility, and assignment to protect the children. We are obligated to protect the innocence of the children. You may ask, protect the children from what?

[03:16:56] I'm glad you asked. Policies like Policy 8040 encourage the children to lie to their parents and shut the mouths of the teachers and administrators. Policies like Policy 5045 allow sexually explicit material in our schools, like Mr. Rivera just read.

[03:17:19] And according to section three of that same policy, and I quote, in subjects that involve human relationships of values or values, either directly or incidentally, the responsibility of the school is to teach these young people to be competitive academically.

[03:17:42] Please leave the human relationships and values to the parents and the guardians. Implementing policies like the ones previously mentioned steals and snatches away the innocence of our children. Everyday parents leave their children in the hands of adults in the school system who have assumed the responsibility of keeping their children safe from all external forces.

[03:18:06] But unfortunately, the school system is allowing the external forces of political agendas, ideologies, and one's sexual proclivities in the classrooms and libraries. protect the children. And finally, collective bargaining is a method that creates barriers between the administrators, the teachers, barriers between the school board members, the superintendents. Loudoun County Public Schools do not need to be unionized. This ultimately hurts our children. There are alternatives to unions. And in closing,

[03:18:43] a wise person once shared the analogy with me. When you go to the grocery store and you chew and you have products there that is too expensive, unsuitable for you, you put it back and walk away. Do that as you please, as you approve and not approve the right things.

[03:19:01] Thank you. And Andrea Weiskopf is our final speaker. Policy 5046 states that school libraries and classroom libraries should include materials that will allow students to develop as critical thinking, but then adds through presenting multiple perspectives

[03:19:37] on controversial topics. Controversial topics, according to another LCPS policy, states significant academic, social, political, or ideological matters.

[03:19:53] Are you ready to back up our LGBTQ students? Are you ready to stand for our students who may be undocumented but are not illegal? Are you ready for us to teach the truth?

[03:20:11] Because there are not two sides to every issue. This policy will not exist in a vacuum. Earlier tonight, you saw a presentation on hate speech that the incidences that are happening in our schools, any one incident is too many.

[03:20:35] No, I did not change topics. There was not a non sequitur. The force behind the policy and the hate speech incidents are connected. Don't erase our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students.

[03:21:00] Remember that black lives matter. Thank you. And that will conclude public comment for this evening. So we will move on to item 11, which is our action item, starting with 1101 from Department of Business and Financial Services, FY24, budget reconciliation.

[03:21:26] Is there a motion, Mr. Mahedvi? Yes, Chair. I move to the Lowndon County School Board to adopt the recommended changes as set forth by the acting superintendent to amend the FY24 operating budget by recognizing $16,300,000 in additional county funding, reducing state funding by $13 million, and adopting expenditure changes totaling $113,171, resulting in a revised budget of $1,668,345,179.

[03:22:04] I'll second. Mr. Mejedevi, would you like to speak to your motion? I'll pass it to Ms. Willoughby, yes. Ms. Willoughby, would you like to speak to Mr. Mejedevi's motion? I support it. I don't have an update.

[03:22:19] We're still waiting to see what happens at this date. So the information that was presented at this last school board meeting is what's supporting the action that Mr. Mahathevi has made. Thank you. I'll open it up to board members for discussion. Seeing none, we, oh, I'm sorry.

[03:22:40] Ms. Reaser. Thank you. I'd just like to ask staff what other items were considered before leave was decided upon as the recommendation. Thank you for the question.

[03:22:56] back in April staff presented to the school board the guiding direction is what we were calling it as it related to reconciling the budget and at that time we identified three core areas that we would review one was compensation another was one-time purchases eligible for year-end funding and then there was just a broad category of other with compensation being 90% of our budget and the main driver of the increase for the FY 24 budget that is where we primarily landed on and is what is supported in the motion for this evening one-time purchases eligible for year-end funding we had reviewed but we are also facing a

[03:23:35] very tight budget this year you may recall as I presented the quarterly financial review to the school board our fund balance that would be returned to the county continues to dwindle and we are very tight and then in terms of other again as a regular process during budget development we look for reallocation opportunities we look for those savings and there had already been substantial efforts made during the development of the budget and so there was it was really a lean budget that the school board had adopted so we did not find any other opportunities to recommend and could

[03:24:11] you just remind us what enhancements or or how we were able to ameliorate either salary or benefits for staff i'm sorry could you repeat the question could you just speak a little bit about what additional resources we were able to provide for staff in the in the budget in addition to compensation no including just oh oh just over last year so for the fy24 budget um right now we have the step increase that will be enacted for july 1 and that's an average of two and a half

[03:24:47] percent we also have place in reserve for action by the school board hopefully in the fall provided that there's nothing that negatively impacts us adopted at the state level that would provide an additional pay increase that would result in an average total of I think I believe it was 5.8 percent across the division I'm trying to look at my notes here really quick we also did yeah 5.8 percent we unfortunately had to recommend the reduction for the leave it really was a lot it

[03:25:24] was very much focused on having a minimum 5% pay increase. That really was the main driver in terms of the budget for this year. And I apologize for not being able to think of other items off the top of my head. No, I think that that's what I was looking for you to confirm, that the raises were prioritized and as a result. And also you talked a little bit about not having that much in year-end funds. And that is where the money for collective bargaining went, right, from our year-end funds.

[03:25:54] Correct. We needed to ensure that we had $3.3 million available at the end of the year to support the collective bargaining for FY24. Okay. Thank you. Additional discussion. Ms. Okedekbe. Thank you, Chair. So I just wanted to reiterate because there is still more to come in August as we're awaiting the final budget from the state.

[03:26:19] So I know that this is in board docs and we discussed it last time. but just for the benefit of those who are here or maybe watching, if you can talk through with us what the expected action would be during the August 8th meeting, just to refresh the memories, thank you.

[03:26:40] - Yeah, so August 8th would be the earliest meeting that we have identified to bring information back or even an action item, depending on what happens at the state. At that time, we would ask the board to revise FY24 salary scales for employees to receive a raise in the form of either a cost of living adjustment or a strategic scale adjustment with the percentage to be determined based on available funding and also that it would be retroactive to July 1 if applicable.

[03:27:11] So again, I do feel cautiously optimistic that we are going to be able to provide some level of additional pay increase. are just really waiting to see what happens at the state before we take that final action we didn't want to try to predict what a safe amount was our safe amount was doing the step increase of two and a half percent because of course we would not want to make a promise to our employees that we could not keep additional discussion seeing none all those in favor of the motion to adopt the staff

[03:27:48] recommendations for reconciliation please raise your hand and say aye aye those opposed that motion will pass 5-1-3 with Polifco opposed and Morris, Corbo, and Beatty absent for the vote.

[03:28:06] So we'll now move to item 11-02 from the Curriculum and Instruction Committee, Revision of Policy 5045, Criteria and Selection of Supplemental Instruction Materials, Adoption of New Policy 5046, Criteria and Selection of School and Classroom Library Materials, and adoption of new policy 5047 review of challenged instructional and library materials.

[03:28:31] Since I'm the committee chair, I will move that the Loudoun County School Board approve the staff recommended changes and committee recommended changes to policy 5045 criteria and selection of supplemental instructional materials, adopt new policy 5046 criteria and selection of school and classroom library materials, and adopt new policy 5047 review of challenged instructional and library materials.

[03:28:57] Is there a second? Oh, sorry, I didn't hear. Yeah, seconded by Mr. Mejedevi. So I will, Dr. Ellis and Dr. Kramp gave a 45 minute long presentation last week about these policies, so I think they pretty much covered it and did an excellent job in describing the changes as well as the public feedback that had been received and whether those resulted in any changes being made to the policies.

[03:29:25] So at this time, I don't have anything further to add in support of my motion. Is there any discussion? Ms. Polifko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to move to make a few amendments, starting with policy 5045.

[03:29:44] And I'd like to look at the, on the red line version, section number three, line 43. I move to strike the words, if applicable. Is there a second? It's seconded by Mr. Mejedevi.

[03:30:03] Ms. Polifko, would you like to speak to your motion? - Yes, I would like to strike those words because it's far too open to interpretation and I don't think it's necessary. And further, I'd like to add a section G below that. May I speak to that motion? - I think, let's do one at a time.

[03:30:20] So this is just to remove, if applicable, from line 43 of the red line. And did you want to speak further to that motion? - A little more. - Okay, go ahead. - Mr. Chair, my point in removing those words is first that with them, we are creating more ambiguity in this policy and we're putting that on teachers to figure out whether or not those items are applicable. I would say that if we're putting that in the policy, it should be applicable to whatever is being taught. So I don't see the

[03:30:52] need to include those words. Further discussion on the amendment? So I know we added in the if applicable in committee and the reasoning behind it was that all of these items may not apply to all instructional material. So the if applicable was intended to be, you know, if you have a, you know, a kindergarten picture book, it may not, it's probably not going to be talking about, you know, diversity of economic environments or, you know, personal integrity, honor, and service.

[03:31:31] So the intent was that you would only evaluate those factors that applied to whatever type of supplemental instruction material you were looking at. So I'd like to hear what other board members think I think it's appropriate to have if applicable in there but I'm I'm open to input on this further discussion miss okay thank you thank you chair I'm also just if I'm having a hard time understanding what the what the objection is there I took it the same way that often it when you say she'll consider the following factors if applicable it's really just it's it's

[03:32:10] It's the not and, but and or in terms of understanding how to apply the bulleted list below. So if some further explanation about the objection could be shared, that would be helpful.

[03:32:28] I'm just not following what that might be. Ms. Polipka. I'm happy to provide that. Thank you. So if we're looking at A through F, my understanding with this policy is that if we're including moral and ethical sensitivities, representative of a pluralistic society, representing all backgrounds, diversity of environments, preservation of freedom, civic responsibility, individual worth, personal integrity, honor, and service, one or more of those could apply to whatever's being taught.

[03:32:56] And so if those items were important enough to be considered in this policy, I would say that we don't need if applicable, because what could end up happening in an instructional situation is a teacher or an instructor could say, none of these are applicable.

[03:33:12] And that's my concern. So we're creating ambiguity. An instructor could just say, well, none of these apply to what I'm doing. But if they're included in this policy, I would think that all of these A through F, all of these segments are important to supporting a culturally responsive environment according to what we are hoping to do in our mission here.

[03:33:32] And that's why I don't see the need for those words in this policy. Further discussion? Mr. Mahedby. Thank you, Chair. Can, I don't know, Dr. Ellis or some staff weigh in on this thing, on the definition, if applicable or not?

[03:33:54] I don't know if the staff has any perspective on this thing. The version of the policy that staff presented did not have if applicable in there. So I think staff would be fine either way. Anything further?

[03:34:15] Seeing none, all those in favor of the amendment to strike the words if applicable from line 43 of the red line of policy 5045, please raise your hand and say aye. Those opposed, please raise your hand and say nay. Nay. That motion will fail 2-4-3 with Reeser, Sheridan, Sorotkin, and Ogedegbe opposed.

[03:34:39] Ms. Polifko, I know you've got more amendments, so I'll let you keep on rolling. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, below Section F, I would like to amend to add Section G to read, Instruction shall exclude inherently divisive concepts.

[03:34:57] Inherently divisive concepts is defined as advancing any ideas in violation of Title 5 and 6 of the Civil Rights Act, I'm sorry, Title 4 and Title 6 of Civil Rights Act of 1964. Ms. Polifko, are you still on policy 5045?

[03:35:15] Yes, I am. I'm looking for, you said below section F, but I think the last section is D. I'm just trying to find where you are. Do you have a line number? Yes, I apologize. It should be right at 40 line EF.

[03:35:36] Did we strike that? Oh, no, I see. Section F of the subsection, so you're at line 60? Section, yes, that's correct, sorry. Section F of subsection number three. So below that, I would like to add G. I apologize for that confusion.

[03:35:55] No problem. And so could you continue or start over reading the section that you want to add? Yes, I will. Instruction shall exclude inherently divisive concepts. Inherently divisive concepts is defined as advancing any ideas in violation of Title IV and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, including but not limited to one of the following concepts.

[03:36:19] One, race, skin color, ethnicity, sex, or faith is inherently superior to another race, skin color, ethnicity, sex, or faith. Two, an individual by virtue of his or her race, skin color, ethnicity, sex, or faith is racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.

[03:36:42] Three, an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race, skin color, ethnicity, sex, or faith. Four, members of one race, ethnicity, sex, or faith cannot and should not attempt to treat others as individuals without respect to race, sex, or faith. Five, an individual's moral character is inherently determined by his or her race, skin color, ethnicity, sex, or faith. Six, an individual by virtue of his or her race, skin color, ethnicity, sex, or faith bears responsibility

[03:37:18] for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, ethnicity, sex, or faith. Seven, meritocracy or traits such as hard work ethic are racist or sexist or were created by a particular race to oppress another race.

[03:37:35] Is there a second? That motion will fail for lack of a second. Do you have additional amendments to offer? Yes, I would like to move to add the same subsection, G, After line 115 of policy 5045 in its draft format.

[03:38:04] So it's the same language that you just read, just in a different place. So that's on line after subsection F on line 115. Okay. Is there a second? That motion will fail for lack of a second.

[03:38:27] Do you have any additional amendments? I have one more, but it's for the next policy, so we can hold on that. If you'd like or you'd like to move on to 5046 now. We're voting on... Let's go ahead to 5045 and vote first. We're voting on all three of those policies together.

[03:38:43] At once? Yes, because 50-45 is an existing policy, and it was split into three, so we have to adopt all three of them at the same time, or else it could be missing things that are currently in policy. So that's why these three were in one agenda item to vote on all three together.

[03:39:00] So if you have any amendments for 50-45, 50-46, or 50-47, we can consider them all now. Okay, thank you. Yes, I'll go ahead to amend policy 50-46 then. And I move to add language on line 54 of the red line version to state that school and classroom library collections shall not include materials that include written instructions on how to engage in sexual conduct.

[03:39:29] So that entire section would read school and classroom library collections shall not include materials that contain visual depictions of sexual conduct as defined in policy 5055 parental notification of sexually explicit content. School and classroom library collections shall not include materials that include written instructions on how to engage in sexual conduct.

[03:39:51] Is there a second? I will second this for discussion. Would you like to speak to your motion? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We talked about this as an information item at the last meeting, and I brought a visual example from one of the books that's in three of our high school libraries right now in Loudoun County, and it is called Queer, A Graphic History.

[03:40:16] And as you can see, there are some images here of sexual conduct occurring. One is between a woman and a man, and the woman is wearing what appears to be a strap-on, and she's anally penetrating the man. Now, we can talk about how this is inappropriate in Policy 5046 in terms of the visual depiction of sexual conduct, but how about a book that may not include these visuals but includes specific directions on how to engage in sexual conduct or to engage or is persuading the reader to engage in that conduct. And this is why I bring that up because the inappropriateness of

[03:40:52] this material is not just limited to what's in pictures. So further discussion on the amendment? Mr. Mahedvi. So Ms. Polifco, what was your amendment again? Because the way the line reads right now is shall not include materials that contain visual depictions. And so what was the recommendation for changes? My recommendation is that we add a line that states school and classroom library collections shall not include materials that include written instructions on how

[03:41:26] to engage in sexual conduct. So you're adding a new line. Is that how I read it? Okay. It can just simply be added where it contains visual or written depictions of all the sexual conduct? We can do that as well. I just would like to make it very clear that the inappropriateness of this material is not just limited to visual depictions. So I'd like to make sure that we're covering possibilities and scenarios in which we have books in our schools that may not contain the

[03:42:00] visual depictions, but they do contain written instructions on how to engage in sexual conduct or engaging in sexual conduct. Further discussion? Sorry. Go ahead. So, Ms. Polifka, are you amending, are you changing your amendment to just, no? She's not. I don't think she changed the amendment. She just re-read it. It's just, it's adding a line to an existing section. Ms.

[03:42:36] I'm perfectly open to taking a friendly, if this is what's occurring here, from Mr. Mahedby. I'm perfectly open to amending my language to state and or written depictions. That's fine with me.

[03:42:52] Perfectly fine. Mr. Mahedby. Yep. Thank you. So I think then, I think in that case, I think it's written, because I think it's not just a visual, but written also. Then I think, at least for this amendment, I could support that.

[03:43:06] I'd like to ask staff a question about this, because I know that when we were discussing policy 5055, there was model policy language from the state about what constituted sexually explicit materials, and there was a distinction there, and I don't remember all the details, but there was a distinction there between visual depictions or written depictions of sexually explicit materials.

[03:43:35] So I'd like to understand, you know, if we have materials that would fall into what's being discussed here, that it's written instructions on how to engage in sexual content, and if that's at odds with the model policy that we had to implement or policy 50-55.

[03:44:01] Thank you, Mr. Sorokin. So I do believe it could be at odds with the model policy and the definition and the code that we're using in terms of the definition of sexually explicit content. My concern is that visual and or written depictions is very broad and could just off the top of my head include many classics, for example, that we've been reading in schools for decades.

[03:44:31] So I would need to do a deeper dive and have a side-by-side analysis of the code and the language. But again, at first glance, the addition of and or written is extremely broad. Further discussion? Ms. Polipko?

[03:44:52] Okay, so my concern here is not with classics. My concern is with instructions on how to engage in sexual conduct. So, for example, an excerpt from, I believe, Mr. Rivera. He's not here anymore. He left. But he read in his public comment this evening from the book that he held in his hands at the podium while he was delivering his speech for three minutes, gave explicit instructions on how to engage in sexual conduct.

[03:45:21] Here's another, touching and rubbing. Genital stimulation can come from any body part. You can use your hands or hips or feet, or you can rub your private parts on someone's thigh, arm, butt, genitalia, ankles, wherever. This is not the kind of material that we find in the classics. This is not classics.

[03:45:38] This is filth that does not belong in our schools and it would not be very difficult for anyone in this room to figure that out within a matter of five or 10 minutes. We don't have a rampant collection of books like this in our schools.

[03:45:53] It would not be hard to pull out what is blatantly inappropriate and tax dollars should not be spent on. This is not about, my proposal here is not to ban books. It is, if anyone wants to get this book outside of the schools, it's available anywhere.

[03:46:10] Go to Amazon, go to Books A Million, go to Barnes and Noble, but it should not be very difficult for us as a board to be adults in the room and make a decision about removing stuff like this from our school libraries. This is ridiculous.

[03:46:27] - Further discussion, Mr. Mahedby. - Thank you, Chair. So I guess Dr. Ellis, I mean, given that this policy's up and I know you mentioned you would need a lot of time to review this, how do you make that sort of decision Because, I mean, again, there are merits for the classical book, and there are a lot of materials.

[03:46:47] But at the same time, I think there are concerns about some written materials, too. So how do you, what can be information can we get today to make that decision? I guess that will be my, I know it's a tough question for you at this point, but. I don't really know how to answer that question, Mr. Mahedby.

[03:47:06] I absolutely see Ms. Polifco's point. We were focused on the instructional piece and the model policies, the guidelines we were given from the state focus on materials used in instruction.

[03:47:23] Again, my concern is a generalized statement that could potentially include any number of books, a far larger number of books than the book that Ms. Polifco is referencing.

[03:47:41] So, again, I really don't know how to answer that question. And my concern, and for the record, I totally understand. Like, I totally understand what you're trying to do. And I think there are some subset of materials that would be inappropriate.

[03:48:04] But I'm concerned that it's the old interpretation problem where this could lead to, as Dr. Ellis said, it could lead to, you know, is anything that has any sexually explicit content, regardless of the context, Could that be seen as being instructions on how to do that, that someone would read and take?

[03:48:27] So I don't know how to do that today to alleviate those concerns. So as far as right now, I don't think I'd be able to support this, but I did think it was important to have this discussion. Dr. Smith? - Yeah, no, I was just gonna reiterate.

[03:48:44] I think, you know, we take a lot of time. I'll just share with each of these policies, they go through a vetting process with staff. We're very intentional about every single word because we know that there's unintended consequences that can come out of it. Because once you adopt a policy, we have all 13,000 of our teachers that are implementing this policy, including central office staff.

[03:49:06] And so I would be concerned as well about the unintended consequences with this. I get what's been shared here. We do have a process to review those materials if those are shared with us and be happy to work on that. But I also just wanted to share, I know we put a lot of time into being very clear about the wording in here.

[03:49:27] And so I just wanted to share, be concerned about unintended consequences. And Dr. Ellis might have one other thing to add, if you don't mind, Pastor. - Dr. Ellis. - Thank you. I just wanted to clarify something that I probably wasn't very clear on.

[03:49:43] I think there is a distinction between, and I get what Ms. Polifco is saying instruction on sexually explicit behavior or sexual behavior and and I absolutely see your point I also can say that there are thousands of library books in our libraries and I if if this were to be added to the policy it would take time to review those thousands of titles I cannot sit here and guarantee

[03:50:20] you that the book that was quoted tonight is the only one like it in the library I can promise you that if it is brought to the attention of staff through the challenge process it is immediately looked at and would likely be removed from the library for that reason that Miss Polifco said I just am very concerned about if we were to add language in this policy would it become a gotcha for the books that could potentially be in the library that would

[03:50:54] need to be reviewed if that makes sense. Additional discussion? Ms. Polifko. Thank you Mr. Chair. Two final comments. Number one, how fast were those books able to make their way into our school libraries? Just like that. It happened very quickly and how long would it take to get them out? If we follow this method it could take years to get these out of our schools my proposal at this point if we cannot come to an

[03:51:29] agreement is to send this policy back to committee and further define what it means to instruct someone to engage in sexual conduct any further discussion on the amendment seeing none we'll place the amendment to a vote all those in favor please raise your hand say aye those opposed nay That motion will fail 243 with Ogadeg Base, Rodkin, Sheridan, and Reeser opposed, and Morris Corbo and Beatty absent for the vote.

[03:52:04] So we're now back to the base motion. Is there any further discussion? Ms. Polifko? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am actually not looking to amend anymore, but I do have a question about policy 5047 on lines 31, 30 to 31 in the red line version, where it states within the school level of request.

[03:52:26] I would just like to have a more robust discussion on what that looks like in particular. If any board member is open to sharing some comments on that. I think I'll defer that to staff because I think that's not a, it wasn't a committee change.

[03:52:42] I think it was a staff recommended change. So I would ask Dr. Ellis or the team to comment on that. Ms. Polifko, could you say the line number again? Yes, it is lines 30 to 31 in 5047 within the school level of request.

[03:53:00] I'm just looking for more explanation on the definition of that. Yes. So our conversation was about having parents who are closest to the situation, for lack of a better description.

[03:53:20] So, for example, if an elementary book is challenged, elementary parents would be selected to be on the committee. Any further discussion? Mr. Reeser. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[03:53:36] So, Dr. Ellis, I just was trying to quickly make some notes while we had someone in public comment talk about policy 5047 at lines 9 through 10 not having the same language about it being applicable to the same school level as the challenger making the request.

[03:53:58] And I would like to offer my colleagues an amendment, but I wondered, and I don't know if we just need to take a brief recess so that I can craft the language. Because, as I said, it was just something someone pointed out in public comment.

[03:54:14] And I think that that makes sense to consider. But since we have not had a recess since public comment, I didn't have time to try to craft language unless staff feels like you could help me do that comfortably while we are on the dais.

[03:54:32] Or would you prefer we took a moment? Would that be possible, Mr. Chair? Are you requesting a brief recess to address an amendment? How much time do you need? Ten minutes. Okay. The board will take a 10-minute recess, and we'll come back at 8.05.

[03:54:50] Thank you.

[03:58:55] We'll pick up where we left off, and Ms. Reeser has the floor.

[04:08:30] Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to make an amendment to add to line 87 after the word. Of which policy? Oh, I'm sorry. 5047, the red line version.

[04:08:51] Let me just find my place again, please. At line 87, after the words, or not, would be comma, consistent with policy 5055, and then there would be a reference to, cross-reference in the footnotes to policy 5055, and the reason for that is policy 5055 has language regarding the fact that a book cannot be found

[04:09:27] to be removable solely for the reason that it has certain topics as its main topic. And the other policies have that reference and this does not. Let me just make sure I have the actual amendment right and then it needs a second.

[04:09:45] So it's after the lines or not on line 87. So it would be recategorizing as sexually explicit or not. And then what language do you want to add there? Comma, consistent with policy 5055.

[04:10:02] Is there a second? Seconded by Ms. Okedekbe. Ms. Reeser, would you like to speak to your amendment? I spoke to it ahead of the second, so I won't repeat it. But I will just say, as far as the placement of the language goes, that was in conference with Division Council about where the placement would be most appropriate.

[04:10:22] And also, there would need to be a cross-reference at the bottom of the policy. Okay. Further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the amendment to policy 5047, please raise your hand and say aye.

[04:10:39] Aye. Those opposed? Abstaining? Okay, so that policy will pass 4-1-1-3 with Polifco opposed, Mejedevi abstaining, and Morris Corpo and Beatty absent for the vote.

[04:11:01] So back to the base motion as amended for the three policies. Is there any further discussion? Ms. Okadegbe? Just a question was, thank you, Chair. Was there a further amendment related to the level of the individual bringing forward challenge?

[04:11:24] Ms. Polifco asked a question about that, but there was no amendment offered, I don't believe. Okay, I'm sorry. I thought there was perhaps for Ms. Reeser. Ms. Reeser? Some of the discussion we had around that in committee was that currently the challenge can be brought, and I'll invite Dr. Ellis to correct me if I get any of this wrong, or the committee chair.

[04:11:49] The challenge has to be brought by a parent at, I'm sorry, the review has to be done by a parent at the level, but the challenge does not. And some of the thinking behind that was you could have a fifth grade parent that wants to bring a challenge to a middle school book where their child is going to be attending.

[04:12:05] And so the decision of the committee was to leave it open for any parent to be able to do that or for the review to occur at a level where it's most applicable. Thank you for that clarification. Any further discussion?

[04:12:24] So we'll now put the motion to a vote to approve staff recommended changes to policy or committee recommended changes to policy 5045 criteria and selection of supplemental instructional materials.

[04:12:40] adopt New Policy 5046, Criteria and Selection of School and Classroom Library Materials, and adopt New Policy 5047, Review of Challenged Instructional and Library Materials as Amended. All those in favor of the motion, please raise your hand and say aye.

[04:12:59] Aye. Those opposed? That motion will pass 5-1-3, with Polifco opposed, and Morris Corbo and Beatty absent for the vote. We'll now move on to item 1103, also from the Curriculum and Instruction Committee, Adoption of New Policy 5048, Family Life Education.

[04:13:22] I move that the Loudoun County School Board adopt New Policy 5048, Family Life Education. Is there a second? Seconded by Ms. Ogadegbe. Not much to add to this one. sent from the last review. It was recommended by staff to put this policy in place when it was realized that we had no local policy on family life education. It is relatively brief and almost entirely just reiterates the state laws and guidelines regarding how family life education

[04:13:57] is taught in public schools in Virginia. Is there any further discussion? Mr. Mejedevi. thank you chair so i know this is codifying what's what's in the virginia code but i think virginia also allows to have an opt-out from uh from family life education i see the line number 26 27 where his parents and guardians have the right to excuse a child but i think it doesn't mention anything related to opt-out i don't know if dr ellis or somebody i mean i guess um mr

[04:14:29] falconi can speak to that my understanding is that phrase means the same thing as opt-out and we were simply quoting so i'll ask mr falconi to correct me if i'm wrong i agree so it's included in what summary the following statement is including within the summary of what it's on the it's posted on our website and included in all the communications provided to families each year

[04:15:03] so i guess i'll maybe i'll post a question to mr falconi so it's a statement i mean so it's just saying that they can they have a great excuse but i guess um why put a statement versus just like a statement the way it's coded up there versus saying that that's by virginia code you have the parents have the right to opt out i'm just trying to understand that versus it's quoted i've never seen like in the policy quoting something in the policy some other statement so

[04:15:43] that language that's included in the proposed policy is actually specifically in the code of to Virginia at 22.1-207.2 and says you need to include this following information on the family life education summary. And I actually asked the same question in committee because it's unusual for us to put exact language in policy to be included on the website or in materials but that's as Mr. Falcone said that exact language is what's required by by code. Any further discussion

[04:16:20] Thank you, Chair. Since the cited website does include the words opt-out, could we, in parentheses, even within the context of a quote, use the in parentheses opt-out just to be clear that excusing from and opting out are intended to be the same thing?

[04:16:39] so my recommendation there would be to keep the language in the code exactly as is but i think that you could achieve the same purpose by adding another sentence after the the quoted language that says this language is intended to allow parents to opt out of the family life education so suggestion miss ogadek i'd like to make a motion for an amendment to add language at the

[04:17:15] end of that paragraph so on line 27 of the version there to indicate that this language is intended to sorry Mr. Falcone or Mr. Mejedevi do you have a suggestion I'm just going to ask Mr. Falcone to come up with a line versus us coming up with a line I'm sorry Mr. Mejedevi could you repeat your question can you help us with a line to after that what you just described can you help

[04:17:49] us with the line instead of us coming up with the line i mean you can help us with the line i'd be happy to um do you want me to i can take a crack at it right now or um sure so um you could add uh at the end of of the sentence on line 27 27 a new sentence that says this language is intended to authorize parents and guardians to opt their students out of the family life education program

[04:18:22] offered by Loudoun County Public Schools? I'll second that. Okay, I'm just, sorry, I'm just typing to make sure I get it right. So I have this language, add a new sentence at the end of the policy on line 27 that would read, this language is, after the close quote, that this language is intended to authorize parents and guardians to opt their student out of the family life education program offered by lcps okay motion made by do i have that right for the intent of the motion okay

[04:18:59] motion made by miss okadeg bay and seconded by okay let's say by uh mr mehedovie dr ellis did you have something you wanted to add sorry to complicate this but i um recommend it saying all or part of family life education program offered by lcps agreed i'm i would appreciate that change. Without objection, the amendment will be so modified to read, this language is intended

[04:19:33] to authorize parents and guardians to opt their student out of some or all of the family life education program offered by LCPS. Ms. Okedegvie, would you like to speak to your motion? I think we've talked this one through enough. Thank you. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the amendment, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. That motion will pass unanimously.

[04:20:03] Board members present with Morris Corbo and Beatty absent for the vote. We're now back to the base motion as amended. Is there any further discussion? Ms. Polifko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the last meeting, Dr. Ellis, I believe there was a comment made regarding line number five on the red line version with contemporary community standards. I think someone asked a question about what that means? What is contemporary community standards? And I believe you referenced VDOE. Could you please correct me if I'm wrong? And I remember something said about the fact that community

[04:20:40] standards is what is listed on the VDOE under family life education. But what is that? What are contemporary community standards? And how is that driving our curriculum in family life education my understanding it yes I do recall that thank you for refreshing my memory my understanding is that that phrase reflects contemporary community standards is a part of video ease guidance and it allows for flexibility

[04:21:17] for school boards based just on that I I don't necessarily I don't have a definition for that or how video we defines it but that's my understanding of its intent.

[04:21:32] - Go ahead. - Just one more question, thank you, Dr. Ellis. My last question, even though it's not explicitly stated here in this policy, is surrounding comprehensive sexual education. I know that is a buzzword right now going on throughout the United States.

[04:21:50] And with the adoption of this policy, my question is, if we were to adopt comprehensive sexual education at some point as a school system, would we need to come back and amend this policy or would we not need to do so?

[04:22:10] - I would ask Mr. Falcone to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that we would probably have to bring it back to the board for a discussion and amendment to the policy. - So I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the term, the comprehensive, what was the term you're using?

[04:22:32] - Comprehensive sexual education. - Okay, yeah, I'm not aware of what that is, so I couldn't say. - Any further discussion? - Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion That the Loudoun County School Board adopt new policy 5048 family life education as amended.

[04:22:55] Please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Those opposed. That motion will pass 513 with Polifco opposed and Morris Corbo and Beatty absent for the vote. We'll now move to 1104 from the Finance and Operations Committee, RFP number R23265 Math Intervention Resources.

[04:23:23] The committee chair is not with us tonight, but Mr. Mejedevi, who's also on the F&O committee, has agreed to make the base motion. Thank you, Chair. The irony, I can read the motion for this one. I move the Lowndon County School Board Award RFP R232651 LCPS Mathematics Intervention Resources to Heinemann and Curriculum Associates from the date of award through June 30, 2024.

[04:23:53] I'll second. - Mr. Meheve, would you like to speak to your motion? - Thank you, Chair. So more or less, I mean, I think one of the things you probably noticed that this is coming up as an action item for the full board versus an information item. So in the committee, we discussed this particular award.

[04:24:13] Again, this award was, it's coming because, well, let me take a step back. There was the board authorized about $400,000 from the year-end revenue, year-end fund, to make it available for purchasing math intervention program.

[04:24:30] And the staff followed through the RFP and the RFQ process to procure the programs for that particular initiative. As you probably know that last year, or actually this year, the Trader Richardson and department have been piloting a program called the Bridges Intervention Program.

[04:24:55] And so the award that's being made right now who is not to the company that has a Bridges Intervention Program. And so that sort of kind of got this entire process going is to better understand because the staff and the division has been piloting the Bridges Program, but through the procurement process, the award is going to these two companies.

[04:25:21] And so I think the idea was typically would have been a consent agenda item, but I thought that VA as a full board get a better understanding on the program that's being selected or being awarded through this process and and the process of how it sort of went through and except went through the whole how the process went through and what what the programs are being uh presented and i believe

[04:25:46] miss richardson you you have a presentation to present on this particular topic good evening thank you for this opportunity i have with me mrs margaret osbury our supervisor of special

[04:26:24] education for specialized in instruction and we are excited to share with you the process that we have gone through this year and even more excited to share how the selected math interventions are going to benefit our students with disabilities across lcps next slide so we were initially investigating math interventions in the fall of 2022 in conjunction with the mtss and math offices and our intent was to find several math interventions that would be successful to improve student outcomes and math for students in tier two and tier three either with or without

[04:27:01] disabilities in the spring of 2023 through the budget process office of special education became aware that the request for funds for math intervention would be funded through end of year funds from fy23 office of special education continued to request for proposal process and continued collaboration with mtss and the math department to problem solve how we may meet the needs of all students who require math intervention we did receive 14 proposals from 11 different vendors as part of the request for proposals and we convened a committee to review those

[04:27:34] next slide please our review committee was comprised and of a selection of general education staff as well as special education staff the proposal review process was organized and led by our LCPS Procurement Office.

[04:27:58] You can see that Mrs. Osbury served on the committee as well as select specialized instructional facilitators for math, an instructional facilitator for math from the Department of Instruction, and a response to intervention consulting teacher.

[04:28:16] During the process, the committee used an extensive rubric to evaluate the proposed interventions criteria for direct instruction evidence of progress with students with disabilities and concrete representational abstract progression were key items that the committee was looking for next slide so as part of our initial efforts in identifying math interventions we did pilot bridges this year as mr. Mahedovey mentioned and some of those additional schools which used Bridges this year which are not listed on this slide such as Belmont Station

[04:28:54] elected to use Bridges Intervention and procured those kits using school funds at each individual specific site outside of the Office of Special Ed Pilot. Bridges Intervention is provided by the Math Learning Center and it covers a variety of topics typically mastered by students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade. We did deploy Bridges at eight different schools, six elementary schools and two middle schools throughout this school year and on the next slide you can see some data that we analyzed at the end of the pilots and what you can see here is five of our pilot

[04:29:31] schools our students with disabilities actually increased their growth in their math skills on map at a greater rate than they're typically achieving peers while we cannot account for all variables which may have contributed to the success of these students the data does indicate that bridges intervention is one possibility to close the gap in math.

[04:29:51] So while this does indicate a positive, the math learning center did not submit a proposal to our request, hence the committee was unable to select them as one of the awards. While the committee had the option to not select any interventions if they did not meet our criteria, we did find two interventions that met our criteria, which Ms. Richardson will outline next.

[04:30:13] The first selected intervention is do the math. It's planned for use for intervention for grades K through 8 and it is provided by the Heinemann Company. It is proposed for a math intervention at the cost of $224,640 for all of our elementary schools.

[04:30:37] iReady is planned for use as an intervention in grades 6 through 12, hybrid instruction format with direct teacher with independent practice or an interactive computer application is available through this tool assessment occurs during computer-led lessons to determine student mastery of skill the total investment in iReady is $124,000 for secondary schools both tools together come to $348,000 the remaining balance of about $52,000 would be made for

[04:31:15] professional learning and staff training. It is important to note that do the math is a one-time expense with the exception of any additional elementary schools that we build across the division and iReady licenses are to be renewed on an annual basis. Next slide. So I will not read this event diagram to you but as you can see Bridges and do the math are very similar. They both target skills typically mastered in kindergarten through fifth grade. They both use a direct explicit multi-sensory approach and they both include a progress monitoring every fifth

[04:31:52] lesson. There are some key differences as it pertains to the instruction itself. For example, Do the Math uses a literacy component to anchor a series of lessons. They use a read aloud text to tie in different elements of the math instruction. Do the Math also has additional practice lessons for each unit, meaning that their content is spread out over more lessons than bridges intervention both cover a similar set of skills and both provide a type of instruction that is most commonly needed for our students on the next slide you can see our future plans so if

[04:32:30] we were to move forward in late summer early fall we would begin training staff in the bridges math intervention we would train staff and do the math and in i-ready we would also provide updated guidance to our staff on matching an instructional intervention to a student specifically students with disabilities and implementing that intervention as well as progress monitoring.

[04:32:51] And then across the next school year, we will monitor the implementation of these interventions with walkthroughs and ongoing coaching from our coaching staff. - We would like to thank Mrs. Willoughby and Mrs. Filyaw for their support through this process and we certainly thank the school board and are available for any questions.

[04:33:14] - Mr. Mattamy. - Thank you. - Thank you, Mr. Richardson and Ms. Osbury for this. And I guess just to kind of give you the context, I think it kind of goes back to the Venn diagram. Again, the reason I'm bringing it up to the full board is that what I felt, and I think it's an opportunity for the full board to also get a chance to look at the programs that are being purchased.

[04:33:38] So I think this presentation is really helpful. I mean, again, for me, just to kind of push back a little bit in coming to this point and making an action item, because I think if you look at the Venn diagram, and I'm seeing for the first time myself, where Bridges you have money in decimals, and I see a number of cents where maybe the do the math have it, or maybe not.

[04:34:03] And so my concern, fellow board members, was that I think the school, the division, has been piloting the Bridges program, and I'm not sure, like I said, why the Bridges company did not submit their, would not participate in the procurement process, but resulting in us going to do the math.

[04:34:23] Now, I also learned that we're still gonna continue supporting bridges so fellow board members again so we're going to have bridges intervention that we're going to support through other funds and we're going to we're going to purchase do the math and then the iReady program so which is good I mean I think we need to invest more into math I think we heard consistently um by everybody and I think we know that this is and you've seen me very passionate about you know having those pilots of math intervention as well so I support the support the idea and the concept, but just this whole procurement, how it sort of went

[04:34:58] through, I thought board members can get a chance to hear about it and get a chance and opportunity to understand and ask questions, so thank you. Ms. Al-Gadagbe. Thank you, Chair. I think mine was just more of a direct question in terms of, do we have a sense of why they didn't respond?

[04:35:17] Did they know that we were seeking respondents to this? And it just seems unusual because we went through and had a pilot, we've socialized this people were using it and it was it seems to be having an impact as you said you can't necessarily draw one-to-one with that and the scores but certainly students did well so I'm just curious why did they know we were looking for a submission and why didn't they respond thank you for your question yes the math learning center was aware of the request for proposal it is our

[04:35:54] understanding that they started the process but they never completed the submission so therefore we were not able to consider them through this process and that there might not be an answer and I realize it's probably too late at this point but is it possible that they didn't just click submit and I miss Willoughby if I see you grabbing the mic I would just want to interject and be cautious with this discussion we are trying to award this solicitation I also don't want to give the appearance that while bridges provides a certain level of service my

[04:36:33] understanding it's a different level of service bait compared to what this RFP was and so that could hypothetically be one reason maybe why they didn't submit but I don't want to give a false impression that had they submitted that they would have been a preferred vendor because we did go through a fair and very detailed solicitation process. I appreciate that thank you and then my My final question is, so in terms of having the three different resources, is the Bridges math being, will that be continued to be used by the schools that had piloted it and those

[04:37:10] that had purchased it with local school-based funding? Is that what I understand? Thank you. So our intent is to purchase Bridges sets, set one and set two for all elementary schools.

[04:37:23] They will each receive one set of each and then that will be available to students through the MTSS RTI model model excuse me as well as our math resource teachers will also be available to use bridges and do the math will also be available to all elementary schools and then our aim is to retain some kits at central office to be checked out to secondary schools for students who may be accessing instruction at those levels and require that intervention.

[04:37:53] thank you so I if if Bridges is going to be available at all of the elementary schools why do why do we need both why do we need do the math if we're getting Bridges anyway outside of this RFP process that's a great question so while they are very similar they are uniquely different from one another and we would have different students and learner profiles that may benefit from do the math and not necessarily Bridges and vice versa as mr. Matt have you pointed out Bridges does work on money and decimals and Do The Math does not. So that is a skill that if we

[04:38:32] have students who require intervention in that area, Bridges would be a better match for them as it has that content and Do The Math doesn't. Addition and subtraction is approached differently in each intervention. And so we would match that student need and learner profile to that specific instruction. Okay. Thank you. Board members, any additional questions for discussion? Okay. All those in favor of the motion which is to award rfpr 232 651 lcps mathematics intervention resources to hindman and curriculum associates from the date of award through june 30th 2024 please raise

[04:39:09] your hand say aye aye those opposed abstaining that motion will pass five zero one three with Mr. Mejedevy abstaining, and Morris Corvo and Beatty absent for the vote.

[04:39:31] That will take us to 11.05 from the Legislative and Policy Committee, Revision of Policy 2610, Loudoun County School Board staff aides. Ms. Reeser. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This policy comes back before the board as it was an information item at the last meeting.

[04:39:52] staff revise this policy to align it with current LCPS practices and responsibilities including the change in the structure of staff aid positions which now makes staff aids eligible for benefits if they work enough hours I'll just see if mr. Slevin wants to add anything to what we discussed last time Thank You mr. Ezerit staff has made no changes to this policy since it was an

[04:40:27] information item. And I can't recall specifically why we did not put it on consent, but I'm happy to answer questions or address concerns if there are any. Can you make the motion, Ms. Reiser? Sure. I move that the Loudoun County School Board approve the revisions of policy 2610 Loudoun County School Board staff aides as amended by the LMP committee. Is there a second? Seconded by Ms.

[04:40:56] Sheridan. Ms. Reiser, anything further to speak to your motion? No, I'll be happy to address any questions or concerns now that i've made the motion thank you uh any questions or discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion to adopt the revisions of policy 2610 london county school board staff aides as amended by the lmp committee please raise your hand and say aye aye that motion will pass unanimously of board members present with morris corvo and baity absent for the vote and that will take us to our last action item from the department of

[04:41:33] Support Services Fall 2023 School Board Meeting Calendar for Henrietta Lacks Elementary School Attendance Zone Change Process and Fiscal Year 2025 Capital Budgets. I'll move that the Loudoun County School Board adopt the proposed meeting calendar for a Dulles South Area Elementary School Attendance Zone Change Process and FY25 Capital Budgets. Further, that the following elementary school communities be notified of the elementary school attendance zone process zone aldi elementary school arcola elementary school buffalo trail elementary school cardinal ridge

[04:42:11] elementary school elaine e thompson elementary school goshen post elementary school hovater elementary school hutchinson farm elementary school liberty elementary school little river elementary school and pinebrook elementary school is there a second seconded by miss okadegbe uh any discussion on the motion miss reaser thank you mr chair so last year when we took up attendance zone scheduling i remarked and mr morse was here that day and he agreed that when we do this right before the summer break and the families get a notice over the summer

[04:42:50] sometimes it gives the appearance that we've done this at a summer school board meeting in order to slide something in without anyone noticing i didn't support it for that reason then and i won't be supporting it because of the timing again tonight just as far as setting the like setting the dates of the meetings for the fall I'm just I don't I don't remember you raise I take your word that you did I just don't remember the specific concern I'm trying to I believe we have to give them notice once we approve the process and the calendar right yes the notified the

[04:43:28] right the ones that may potentially be notified of this would be those families would be emailed. Correct. Over the summer. Correct. Yes. Right. Okay. Further discussion? Mr. Mahademi. Thank you, Chair. So, Ms. Reza, what would be your proposal, I guess, if you don't do it tonight? And I guess I'd like to ask Mr. Lewis, too, what the impact would be, but what would be the alternative to, if not approving tonight? I'm not proposing an alternative. I'm just explaining my vote. So, Mr. Lewis, can you speak to the concern raised

[04:44:03] by Ms. Reza? If I understand the concern is that we're taking this action in the summertime, and the reason that we do that is because the school board's calendar is so jam-packed that we have to reserve the dates on the calendars with all the other meetings so our effort is to try to get the calendar set so we can have all the ample time meet the meeting schedule that's per policy all the different public hearings and work sessions so we can get to all those in at the same time we're doing all the capital budget so that's it's quite a logistical challenge just to get the

[04:44:37] meetings in. So that's why we're doing it. So forgive me again. So we notified, I think this is something I've shared my concern when we did the boundary or the bus rezoning, for example, that sometimes when we notify the parents and the email gets lost, are we, is it just going to be email or are we also going to send snail mail, like a mail, physical letter mail to the parents and the families as well? So generally we send it through email. We go through the Blackboard connect and do all those electronic transmissions we have not been sent

[04:45:15] individual letters because there are obviously quite a few schools listed to make sure that the board has the option to connect with any school in the boundary area that may be affected by the new boundary so we have not been doing individual letters for that miss Rieser thank you so in considering your question as I sit here I suppose my suggestion would be that we come back and notify them in August and push the meetings later into November and make the decision, push the CIP meeting if we need to, and the board of supervisors gets what they get

[04:45:53] from us when we're able to accommodate it. Well, we could vote on it, but then delay notification until August or later on in the summer, if that would alleviate the concern, because that would, I believe doing it that way would not cause a delay in the meetings. Would that, I don't know if that would alleviate, if that's in line with your suggestion. Yeah, I don't even know if that's an option what kind of requirements there are for notice if there are if there are procedural requirements for how many days after we make the decision or how many days in advance of the

[04:46:27] meeting I really don't know what the the boundaries around all of it are but that was my that was the concern I voiced last year and so when I saw it come back the same way again this year I just thought I would explain that I don't support notifying families over the summer of boundary changes for this for the same reason i didn't last year it is um confusing it's upsetting we're not in session they get the wrong idea about the timing of it and we did hear from people about that both tonight and last year many people did not understand um because they just don't pay the same attention to things that are going on with school when they're on summer break

[04:47:04] additional discussion ms palipko thank you mr chair is there a reason that um the process is handled in this manner? Is there a reason that we've not in the past, or at least what Ms. Reeser is referring to in terms of the timeline, is there a reason that it hasn't or it cannot be done any earlier? Are you asking if it can be done, if this process could be done earlier in the year before now? Is that what you're asking? I guess I'm just looking to alleviate the issue of families

[04:47:43] getting this notification over the summer because I agree with Ms. Reeser's concern. So I'm looking for solutions or a different approach if there is a possibility for that. Sure, and board members have mentioned already that we could possibly delay the notification.

[04:48:00] We're happy to do that. I will say in the years past, other boards have elected to make sure to get notices out as soon as possible so families have as much time to be aware and be prepared for it. But that's certainly an option. The first meeting is not until October 19th, so we could wait until school was in or wait until August 1st.

[04:48:17] It's, you know, that's certainly up to the board. We just want to make sure we give parents as much opportunity as we can to be aware of what's happening for the following school year. Because when you get into that fall season, everybody gets really busy again. I think perhaps doing both might be preferable to just waiting because that way you provide the early notification, but then also provide a reminder or additional notification prior to the start of the school year or when people start paying attention to school stuff again in August.

[04:48:48] Yes, sir. We have plans to do it in September as well, so we can do it now, August and September, or we can, whatever the board chooses, that's fine with us. Okay. Mr. Mejedevi and then Ms. Reeser. No, thank you, Chair. I think that was my question. I think, can we do it in July and then August?

[04:49:04] And I guess my question for Mr. Lewis is typically how many notifications do we do in this case? Like, let's say if the board wasn't chiming in, like, how many notifications would we do? I'm sorry, can you repeat your question? How many notifications would we do normally? Would we do one July and one September based on what you just said?

[04:49:22] Yeah, I think we generally do September and October before the first meeting. So we normally do two, but we can add one in August. That's no problem at all. I would be in favor of doing July, August, September, October, more the merrier, because we need to, again, just be adding two.

[04:49:41] That's all. Ms. Reeser. Would it be problematic to have the meetings in November if we waited to begin the notifications in August. Did you ask if it's a problem if we waited until August to do the notices?

[04:50:01] To have the meetings begin a month later so that we could wait until the summer was over to make the notifications. There's just simply not enough time to get all the meetings in. Okay. So my point wasn't to bombard people with notices. My point was not to stress them out with this over the summer when no one's here to answer questions or explain what's happening.

[04:50:22] So I think we can, I don't need us to discuss this anymore. I feel like I've sufficiently explained to my colleagues why I won't be supporting this. Additional discussion? Mr. Mahedby. Well, I appreciate you bringing this thing up.

[04:50:40] I'm sorry. I think I appreciate you bringing this concern up. I think you made a valid point. I think we were just trying to find a way to address the concern that you brought up.

[04:50:56] And I think that's whether you support or not support it, but I appreciate you bringing the concern up. i think you also make a valid point is i think do you want to make you know people i mean we went through the boundary rezoning last year do you want to put everybody on notice in july and then kind of have the worry too i mean that's a valid point too even though miss reza is not going to support it but i think she makes a valid point any further discussion seeing none all in favor of adopting the proposed meeting calendar please raise your hand and say aye aye those

[04:51:31] opposed that motion will pass 5-1-3 with the reza opposed and morris corvo and baity absent for the vote. We'll now resume our information items 1101 and 1102 were heard during our work session so we will move on to our last information item 1103 from the Department of Student Services 2023 Suicide Prevention Awareness Month Proclamation. Dr. Richardson. Thank you. Youth suicide is a global problem and a major public health concern. Suicide is the second leading

[04:52:06] cause of death for youth aged 10 to 18 and affects youth of all ages, genders, races, cultures, and religions. Suicide Prevention Awareness Month represents a call for action and involvement by our schools and community partners to bring greater awareness to this serious public health problem and shows our commitment to social change. In recognizing the significance of this public health problem, Loudoun County Public Schools created an office devoted to supporting the mental health and wellness of all LCPS students,

[04:52:44] the Office of Student Mental Health Services. The long-term goal of the office is to offer prevention services that promote mental wellness, early intervention for emerging mental health issues, and tiered intervention supports for students whose mental health issues are creating barriers to learning.

[04:53:05] Loudoun County Public Schools supports mental health and awareness programs that reduce suicide risk and stigma of mental health disorders through training and education of staff and students and promote a positive, supportive, and healthy school climate that builds hope, connectedness, and resiliency in our youth.

[04:53:28] By collaborating with Loudoun County Mental Health, substance abuse, and developmental services, our community partners in this endeavor, we can indeed save lives. It is the recommendation of administration that the Loudoun County School Board adopts the proclamation recognizing September 2023 as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

[04:53:50] Attachments of the redlined document and the clean copy are in board docs for your reference. Thank you. - Thank you, Dr. Richardson. Board members, any questions or discussion regarding the proposed proclamation.

[04:54:06] Seeing none, we'll place this on action for our next board meeting. That will take us to item 13, our evening closed session. Is there a motion, Mr. Medvey? - Yes, Chair. I move to the Lowenton County School Board, recess this public meeting, and enter into a closed meeting person to section 2.2-3712 of Code of Virginia for the following.

[04:54:28] Discussion of the performance and discipline of a specific public employee, as authorized by Section 2.2-3711A1 of Code of Virginia and 8-VAC-2019-34. Discussion or consideration of the performance and discipline of specific public employees, as authorized by Section 2.2-3711A1 of Code of Virginia.

[04:54:52] Discussion or consideration of disciplinary and other matters involving the disclosure of information containing the scholastic records enrolled in the Lowndes County Public Schools, as authorized by Section 2.2-3711 of the Code of Virginia and consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body regarding specific legal matters requiring the provisions of legal advice by such counsel as authorized by Section 2.2-3711 of the Code of Virginia regarding matters concerning the Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and discussion or consideration of the performance and discipline of specific public employees

[04:55:30] as authorized by section 2.2.3711A1 of Code of Virginia and meeting with staff required by Code of Virginia section 22.1-294D regarding the reassignment of a specific employee pursuant to Code of Virginia section 2.2.3711A1.

[04:55:52] - I'll second, is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please raise your hand and say aye. - Aye, that motion will pass unanimously board members present with Corbo, Morse, and Beatty absent for the vote. We're now in closed session

[04:56:13] and I do anticipate motions coming out of closed session. The board is coming out of closed session.

[07:36:45] Is there a motion, Mr. Mahedvy? Yes, Chair. I move that the closed meeting be adjourned, that the Lowndon County School Board reconvene its public meeting, and that the minutes of the public meeting reflect that no formal action was taken in the closed meeting. I move to the following resolution certifying the closed meeting be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting.

[07:37:05] Resolution 50-22-23, whereas the Lowndon County School Board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded board and in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, and whereas Section 2.2-3712-D of Code of Virginia requires a certification by the school board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law, now therefore be it resolved that the Lowndon County School Board hereby certifies to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed

[07:37:40] meeting to which the certification applies and only such public business matters as where as were identified in the motion convening to closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the Lowndes County School Board. Sir seconded by Ms. Sheridan ending discussion. Seeing none all those in favor of the motion please raise your hand and say aye. All right that motion will pass unanimously of board members present with Morris Corbo and Beatty absent for the vote. We have two motions required by the closed meeting uh in the first i move to affirm the superintendent's

[07:38:15] recommendation to reassign the school administrator identified in a closed meeting to a teaching position for the 2023-24 school year is there a second seconded by miss sheridan any discussion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please raise your hand say aye aye those opposed Any abstentions? That motion will pass 5-0-1-3, with Ms. Polifco abstaining and Morris Corbo and Beatty absent for the vote.

[07:38:51] Is there another motion, Mr. Mahetvi? Yes, Chair. I move from the superintendent's disciplinary decision regarding the teacher identified in the closed meeting. Is there a second? Seconded by Ms. Sheridan. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please raise your hand and say aye.

[07:39:09] and I am abstaining from that vote so that motion will pass 5013 with Sorotkin abstaining and Morris Corvo and Beatty absent for the vote that will bring us to item 14 without objection given the lateness of the hour we will skip over board member comments and committee reports which will bring us to item 15 new business is there any new business tonight seeing none we are adjourned Good night.

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