Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, 2nd Tuesday School Board Meeting, Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Date: Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 6h 41m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/873046003?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 2026-10-19. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] i've been notified that ms reaser is requesting a remote participation ms reaser um please state your location and whether this is a medical or personal matter if or is anyone present with you at this location if so please state their names uh thank you mr maherdevi i am home with my dog who you might have heard i apologize for that and this is a personal matter therefore i'll entertain a motion that Ms. Reeser's request to participate remotely be granted.

[00:00:35] So moved. Second. Moved by Ms. Sheridan and seconded by Mr. Morse. Any comments on this motion? Okay. I guess we'll go to our electronic voting. So, the clerk, could you open up the electronic voting, please? Thank you.

[00:01:10] I think you can close and share the results. You can share.

[00:01:28] Yeah, please.

[00:01:43] Okay. Note that the motion passes with all the board members present, with Ms. Tiffany, Ms. Polifko, Mrs. Sorotkin, Ms. Reeser, and Ms. Corbo absent. Ms. Reeser, welcome to the meeting. Thank you. I've also been notified that Ms. Corbo will look to participate remotely at 6.30, so we'll wait to go to the motion when Ms. Corbo joins in. Thank you.

[00:02:15] Moving to the next item on the agenda is remote participation. i'll start with miss sorry or disclosure sorry my bad this uh disclosures uh miss sheridan thank you as a member of the laden 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 specifically as a school board member i am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an lcps employee these benefits however

[00:02:52] affect thousands of employees while 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. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you. Mr. Morse. Thank you, Mr. Vice-Chair. As a member of the Laudan County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with an 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 benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically, my spouse is an LCPS employee who may be affected by any potential changes to employee salaries, the budget, and or health insurance. These

[00:03:32] subjects include thousands of employees, well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may be affected, of which my spouse and I are included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you.

[00:03:48] Thank you, Mr. Morris. 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 employee salaries, the budget and or health insurance, and any other discussion that may include or affect salary and benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:04:05] 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.

[00:04:21] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. That finishes our item number two, disclosure. We'll move on to the item number three, approval of consent agenda. Do we have a motion for the approval of consent agenda?

[00:04:38] I move approval of the October 10th, 2023 consent agenda. Second. Motion made by Ms. Sheridan, seconded by Mr. Morse. Do we have any comments, questions on this? Madam Clerk, could you open up the voting? Thank you.

[00:05:03] Ms. Reeser, would you like to share your vote? Yes. I think we can close it and show the results.

[00:05:24] Please note that the motion passes with all the board members present with Ms. Polifko, Mr. Sorotkin, and Ms. Corbo absent. Thank you. We'll move to our next item, the work sessions.

[00:05:41] The first item on the agenda is Department of Academics Update on Goal 1.1, Strategic Plan Update and Annual Student Achievement Data Presentation. Dr. Ellis? Thank you.

[00:05:57] Good afternoon, Mr. Meheffi, school board members.

[00:06:27] This evening I have with me Lenny Compton, Principal of Watson Mountain Middle School, Tedra Richardson, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services, Neil Slevin, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, and Dr. Ryan Tyler, Director of Research, Assessment, and School Improvement.

[00:06:46] This evening we have for you our presentation, our annual student achievement data presentation, as well as information on Goal 1.1 of our strategic plan. Before we get into the presentation, I did want to orient you to several documents in board docs.

[00:07:03] This is a lengthy presentation, and we're providing you several additional documents for your review that we won't have time to do a deep dive on, but the information is available to you, and we are happy to answer any questions or continue with additional presentations in the future if you wish.

[00:07:20] So this evening, we will be going over the alignment to the strategic plan, specifically goal 1.1 core academic excellence. We'll share data on SOL achievement, map growth, graduation rates, SAT scores, information on chronic absenteeism, and accreditation overall. We'll also talk about what the data means and strengths and areas of opportunity for improvement. And with that, I will kick it over to Mr. Compton to get us started. Thank you, Dr. Ellis. Here

[00:07:56] are our six core values that drive our work. Specifically, we approach student achievement through the values of equity and opportunity, individualized success, and a focus on continuous improvement. When our students are immersed in rigorous teaching and learning environments, we know they are empowered to fulfill their potential and will make meaningful contributions to the world. This afternoon, we return to Strategic Goal 1, Empowered Students, who are at the center

[00:08:28] of our work. On October 24th, you will receive updates on Strategic Goals 2, 3, and 4. Our specific focus this afternoon again is on goal 1.1 core academic excellence and our student achievement data from the 2022 to 2023 school year. We shared our progress of goals 1.2 to 1.4 with you on September 26th and now Dr. Ellis will share with you important resources related to student achievement and key definitions you will want to know for this presentation.

[00:09:04] So most of the data in this presentation is now readily available to the public both from VDOE and on our LCPS website there are two links on this slide that lead to two sets of school profiles for you and the public to review with various data sources so for the LCPS school profiles you'll find enrollment information accountability assessment attendance and graduation data on the video we school trial profiles you'll find similar information as well as demographics college and career readiness program completion school safety and teacher

[00:09:42] quality information. All of this information is sortable by school divisions and individual schools and subgroups within those categories. You'll also hear reference to a couple of definitions that we've provided here on this slide, specifically what we mean when we talk about English learners, students with disabilities, and McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act that will refer to later on in the presentation.

[00:10:15] Throughout this presentation, we will show you a variety of achievement metrics that demonstrate our progress for goal 1.1, core academic excellence. Action 1.1 focuses on enabling student academic excellence through the use of the LCPS profile of a graduate, providing rigorous and culturally responsive instruction, implementing evidence-based literacy instruction, and developing a balanced assessment system.

[00:10:46] Now I will turn it over to Mr. Neil Slevin and Dr. Ryan Tyler to share more information regarding our SOL achievement. - Thank you, Mr. Compton. Next slide, please. To summarize the data on this slide, the overall SOL scores decreased from the 21-22 to 22-23 in reading, social science, and science by one percentage point each.

[00:11:12] The overall writing SOL scores remain the same at 81%, while the overall math scores increased by two percentage points. When comparing the scores by level, Elementary schools increased in all four tested subject areas, reading, social science, math, and science. Middle school scores increased in social science, math, and science, while remaining the same for reading and writing.

[00:11:35] When looking at the high school scores, there is an increase in scores in writing. Scores at the high school level remain the same in reading and math, while they decreased in social science and science. The large decrease in social science scores at the high school level is most likely due to the transition most high schools have made to performance assessments, which is not included in this data set?

[00:11:59] - So as we consider historical data over several administrations, just a reminder that during the 2019-20 school year, we did not administer the SOLs, we're in emergency distance learning. And during the 21-22 school year, where SOL tests were administered, we did have significant increases in parent refusals and disruptions to instruction.

[00:12:22] So we either would have no data for the spring and we will have information as far as results from the spring of 2020 and information from the spring of 2021 that will have significant differences due to parent refusals and other items.

[00:12:37] Just something to remember as we continue to look at our historical data. On the next slide, you will see here over the last five administrations for which we had data, we did see decreases in pass rates across the different content areas and some differences across the content areas in the progress since then.

[00:12:58] The largest decrease occurred in the area of mathematics and we've seen a significant increase in pass rates, but not quite to the level of pre-pandemic. And we also see similar patterns of history. In science, we saw a significant decrease and we're not seeing as sufficient or as substantive a recovery.

[00:13:17] And in reading was the area where we saw the lowest decrease and the current last year results that are most closely mirroring what we saw during the pandemic, but still not quite where we were before, but increases in a number of areas.

[00:13:35] On the next slide, you will see, looking at the last year's results for the Commonwealth compared to LCPS. Across the board, LCPS having higher pass rates for reading, math, science, and significantly higher rates for history and writing.

[00:13:52] You go to the next slide. When we look at certain student groups, English learners in particular, while we see a similar trend, we see significantly lower pass rates for LCPS and the Commonwealth for English learners. In the next slide, we see a similar trend for students with disabilities.

[00:14:12] And while we're seeing higher overall performance for LCPS in general for English learners and students with disabilities, when you go to the next slide, you'll see within LCPS the overall student performance there in the black circles, and then students with disabilities in the orange English learners in the dark blue.

[00:14:34] There are persistent outcome gaps that we see in LCPS, as we've seen across the Commonwealth. We did see some closing of those gaps up until the pandemic. The idea of those gaps have widened somewhat. And while we see overall high performance, there's definitely outcomes that are areas for growth for us.

[00:14:58] - Given what Dr. Tyler just shared, we wanted to pause and spend a couple minutes talking about the Governor's All-In Virginia Plan to address learning loss and chronic absenteeism. We'll mention this a couple more times this evening and we'll start with the high dosage or high intensity tutoring part of the All in Virginia plan.

[00:15:18] So BDOE has established cut points for the All in Virginia tutoring program. We are not sure if these cut points will be permanent or just one time to help school divisions address accelerating learning for these students this current year.

[00:15:34] These are not new cut points for SOL scores. I do wanna make that clear. So the SOL data that Dr. Tyler just showed is using the cut scores for proficiency, and these are specifically for the purposes of tutoring.

[00:15:49] So you'll see those cut scores here. And then on the next slide, you'll see a definition or a description of a new category, again, just for the purposes of identifying students for high-dosage tutoring.

[00:16:04] The VDOE has defined three proficiency levels to determine which students in grades three through eight would be eligible for high dosage tutoring. So those three proficiency levels are not proficient, so students who have failed the SOL, low proficient, and high proficient.

[00:16:26] So the students who are in the not proficient or low proficient category would be eligible for high dosage tutoring. So the numbers on this slide show the pass rates and those three categories for all of the state in grades 3 through 8.

[00:16:45] And if you go to the next slide, you'll see the distribution of those three categories over LCPS students. And you'll see that 31% of LCPS students who passed an SOL reading test are considered in the low proficient category and would be eligible for high dosage tutoring.

[00:17:03] And 26% of LCPS students who passed the mathematics SOL would be also considered. So we're taking this into account as we work with principals to develop a plan for high-dosage tutoring.

[00:17:20] I will talk a little bit more about that in a few more slides, but we have established a workgroup of principals and central office staff to develop plans for high-dosage tutoring that will be implemented as soon as possible. If we could go back to slide 21 for just a second.

[00:17:41] This slide, I just wanted to point out that the SOL pass rate by school report is available in board docs. We won't go through that this evening, but it is available. It's also available at the VDOE Build-A-Table website that's linked on this slide.

[00:17:58] So any individual from the board or the public could go in and use this link to develop their own report. But the school-by-school report is in BoardDocs this evening. So as we think about the data that Dr. Tyler shared, what does the data actually mean?

[00:18:20] What does it say? The SOL pass rates decreased from 2018-2019 to 2021, but have been on an upward trend. There are still significant achievement gaps that remain for students with disabilities and English learners, and those achievement gaps need to be addressed.

[00:18:40] So while we continue to be a high-achieving and high-performing school division, particularly when compared to state averages, there is work to be done, particularly with these subgroups. To address the needs of all students, LCPS is implementing the following actions to continue to work towards closing the achievement gap.

[00:19:07] We are creating an LCPS instructional framework designed to ensure a consistent focus on best instructional practices. We are providing schools who are required by VDOE to receive accreditation support or monitoring during the 2023-2024 school year.

[00:19:25] There will be a shared and collaborative process by multiple offices across Latin County Public Schools. And we are also expanding to K-12 resources and professional learning to support rigorous instruction.

[00:19:44] Additionally, we are providing training for all teachers that will include A-OK, access, opportunity, and knowledge, instructional examples for each teacher. We are continuing our work on early literacy through an adoption process and evaluating our professional learning supports, which you'll be hearing about in the next work session.

[00:20:03] We have expanded our locally awarded verified credit process for social science and global studies all high schools, which awards credits based on a portfolio of student work, and we are developing local science benchmark assessments to inform curricular and intervention decisions at the elementary and middle school level. To address the needs of our English learners in particular, the English Learner Office has collaborated with core content offices to implement the Title III required English language development standards in EL co-taught general education classes.

[00:20:38] We have developed, refined, and provided guidance on the role of the English learner teacher, on class placement of students, and EL teacher and student scheduling best practices. And we are implementing an EL professional development plan for administrators and educators of English learners to include administrative look force.

[00:21:03] Continuing with our support of English learners, we have collaborated with our special education colleagues on delivering professional development and resources to support duly identified students. We have elementary English learner teachers participating in the letters training provided by the Early Literacy Elementary Reading and Writing Office.

[00:21:22] And we are in the process of delivering family engagement and immigrant youth professional development to school-based staff, as well as English learner family room monthly virtual sessions on a variety of topics. To address the needs of our students with disabilities, LCPS is implementing the following actions to continue to work towards closing the achievement gap.

[00:21:48] A change in structure and service delivery to schools with the assignment of specialized instructional facilitators. The new service model affords each LCPS school cluster a fully dedicated CIF for special education, enhancing the direct instruction and coaching of school-based staff, collaborative learning team participation, and data collection and analysis to inform instructional alignment for students with disabilities.

[00:22:19] Our decision for LCPS to invest in an Orton-Gillingham model for reading instruction underscores our commitment to ensuring the continuity and effectiveness of literacy education for all of our students with disabilities.

[00:22:35] The Orton-Gillingham model is a well-established, evidence-based approach that has proven to be highly successful in addressing the diverse needs of learners, especially those struggling with dyslexia or other reading challenges. LCPS's investment in Orton-Gillingham for reading instruction for students with disabilities demonstrates a dedication to providing a high-quality, individualized education for all students, ensuring that every learner has the opportunity to develop strong literacy skills.

[00:23:07] By embracing this research-backed approach, we are fostering an environment where every student can thrive in their reading journey and reach their full potential academically. As advocates for high-quality education, LCPS has identified and secured new math interventions in June of 2023 to meet the needs of students with disabilities through access to Do the Math, Bridges, and iReady that focus on improving mathematical proficiency among our students.

[00:23:42] Mathematics is a fundamental skill, and interventions that address individual learning needs contribute significantly to our students' academic success. Each math intervention focuses on personalized learning for our students through pacing and differentiation options.

[00:24:01] Additionally, the math interventions foster an enhanced focus on building a strong foundation in mathematical skills, data-driven instructional alignment for students with disabilities, all platforms are engaging and interactive for our students and they provide our students with the necessary tools to approach higher level thinking and problem-solving skills. Lastly, LCPS utilizes an instructional match chart as a powerful and collaborative tool in aligning reading and math interventions

[00:24:36] with the unique requirements of each student. The visual frameworks systematically guide IEP teams through a series of key considerations, such as students' performance data, learning styles, and specific skill gaps. By analyzing these factors in a structured manner, instructional match charts enable our IEP teams to make informed and personalized decisions regarding the most effective reading and math interventions for our students. Within

[00:25:12] In the context of reading, the instructional math charts can take into account factors such as reading fluency, comprehension, and phonemic awareness, helping our IEP teams to pinpoint the precise areas where students may need additional specialized instruction.

[00:25:33] Likewise in math, these charts are currently under the development process, and they will focus on mathematical concepts such as problem-solving skills and foundational knowledge, which will help guide students' IEP teams towards specialized interventions that address the students' unique challenges.

[00:25:54] Next slide, please. At this time, Dr. Tyler will speak about MAP conditional growth.

[00:26:10] So whereas the SOLs in the spring are administered to assess proficiency, the MAP Growth Assessment looks at growth for students over a period of the fall, winter, and spring, and give us not only a local perspective but a national perspective.

[00:26:27] So as you're looking at this and you see the conditional growth percentile, remember that that is an actual metric that is developed based upon not just a student's peer group but their performance group, meaning students at the same achievement level and grade and subject area are set on a particular path where the conditional growth percentile measures the extent to which each student is meeting the actual growth norm based upon that same level of performance in the other groups of students, the same level of performance.

[00:26:56] So a higher conditional growth percentile means that student is growing at a faster pace relative to other students at the same starting point. So if we go to the next slide, we'll see, this is a dashboard from our 1LCPS strategic plan, and you will see three data points at the top for the map data.

[00:27:14] You'll see our baseline data from two years ago, spring of 2022 you'll see our targets not only for that particular year but also for moving forward and those targets are based upon the premise that if you're identified in need of tier three supports based upon our mts the map score and the mtss decision trees you need to grow at a faster pace to get to a level of achievement say at the 50th percentile while we have goals for the 60th conditional percentile for tier three the 55th conditional percentile for students in need of of tier two supports and students who are at that in need of tier one or at that tier one level we

[00:27:53] want to sustain. As you can see from the 2023 data we were able to meet our goals for our targets for reading for students in need of tier two supports at 56 compared to 55 and for math in tier one and tier two and we did not meet our goals in the other areas. We also see that in the area of reading we actually are not sustaining students who are starting the year in need of Tier 1 supports.

[00:28:25] So moving to the next slide, what does this data tell us? LCPS is accelerating students in need of Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports. However, as Dr. Tyler mentioned, there has been no significant growth for individual subgroups of students as a whole. I would also like to mention that the MAP data was shared in more detail with the curriculum and instruction committee in may of 2024 and so we won't go through those slides in detail but they are in the appendix they're also in board docs

[00:29:00] under that cni committee meeting moving to the next slide so what are we going to do to support students specifically specifically regarding map data this is also closely tied to the strategies that Mr. Slevin and Ms. Richardson just talked about regarding SOL achievement.

[00:29:20] So in addition to all of the strategies that they just shared, staff at the schools are working collaboratively in CLTs or collaborative learning teams to plan and deliver differentiated instruction and interventions aligned to student needs.

[00:29:35] As I mentioned earlier, we have formed an LCPS all-in tutoring task force to develop a plan based on BDOE guidance around high dosage tutoring and we will use not only the SOL achievement data but the MAP growth data to help plan for that tutoring to provide that high dosage tutoring for students aligned to their specific needs. Now we will shift to graduation data. Going to the next slide. So just a brief description of what we mean when we say Virginia

[00:30:12] on-time graduation rate. It is the percentage of students in a cohort who earned a Board of Education approved diploma within four years of entering ninth grade for the first time. Cohorts are labeled as the expected year of their graduation. And Dr. Tyler will walk us through this data. So as you'll see on this slide, the same format you saw from the dashboard and other cases the actual 2022 data the 2023 target and the actual data from 2023 and you'll see our overall

[00:30:47] graduation rate at 97 percent has remained pretty consistent meeting that particular target our targets for hispanic economically disadvantaged english learn and bckinney vento students and you'll see in each of those cases we did not meet our goals for 2023 as far as those targets and we will you will see that we actually saw a significant increase increase for decrease for bikini-vento eligible students and as you'll see on the next slide compared to the commonwealth the graduation rate of 97 is significantly higher than the 92 graduation rate across virginia

[00:31:27] and while we see that there are higher rates in general when we actually get to mckinney-vento eligible students we see that it's actually below the commonwealth graduation rate 70 percent compared to 77 percent in the next slide you'll see comparing ourselves to our previous performance that we did see a decrease in the graduation rate for american indian students and again that same decrease for mckinney-vento eligible students there were some small decreases small

[00:32:01] increases or sustaining in other areas. But as you see here, there is an awareness in our particular case of the increasing needs of McKinney-Vento eligible students, also considering that that is one of the fastest growing populations in our county. And I can verify the numbers, but going from a number of years ago, 400 students to I believe 17 or 1800 students just in the last 10 years. So what does this data mean? LCPS graduation rates do remain high and graduation rates for

[00:32:38] McKinney-Vento eligible students have decreased with other subgroups dropping slightly as well and I'll turn it over to Ms. Richardson to describe some of the strategies we're using to support students. Thank you Dr. Ellis. What are we doing to support our students? We have credit recovery opportunities for students. We have support from our school counselors. We have collaboration between McKinney-Vento specialists and the offices within the Department of Academics.

[00:33:07] And in January 2023, the McKinney-Vento program worked closely with the student mental health office to launch the McKinney-Vento support tier initiative at each high school within LCPS. This began in January of 2023.

[00:33:24] The school counselors and school social workers were asked to complete a Tier 3 worksheet during their check-ins to provide feedback to the McKinney-Vento team for review to learn more about what specific support the school system can assist students with.

[00:33:43] the McKinney-Vento team then provides referrals and resources that are individualized for each student that is identified and Dr. Tyler will now talk us through the SAT data so whereas the SOLs take us from a commonwealth perspective and the map data takes us from a from a commonwealth to a national perspective the SAT scores actually give us a global perspective so as you see the

[00:34:17] results from the class of 2023 from last year, LCPS compared to the Commonwealth average SAT scores and the global scores, LCPS, is exceeding both categories for reading and writing, math and total. So in the next slide, you'll see that over time, reading and writing has remained pretty steady. We've seen a slight decrease in math performance for LCPS. We've seen significant decreases for the commonwealth and the global groups as well and in case you're wondering we

[00:34:56] have 63 percent of our students taking the SAT within LCPS the last time we checked that was a higher percentage than we saw in the commonwealth so it's a significant population of our students who are taking this assessment which gives you an idea of the level of performance within LCPS so the next slide we're going to share with you for the first time in this format a conversation around chronic absenteeism and the idea of chronic absenteeism has been a part of our accreditation system for a number of years and the premise is that the national research indicates that students

[00:35:35] who miss 10 percent or more of their school year are vulnerable to a number of risk indicators meaning the idea of having academic struggles it may be also an indication of challenges with behaviors, and you'll sometimes see higher levels of suspensions. And essentially, when you miss 10% or more of your school year, it really escalates the risk of not graduating on time. And the way the Virginia Department of Education defined it, schools that have higher populations of students who are chronically absent are identified for different levels of support. Level 3 schools

[00:36:12] have 25% or more of their students who are chronically absent. 16 to 25% is level 2. And having no more than 15% places you in level one. So if you go to the next slide, just to give you a little background, where our percentage increased from 13% two years ago to 19% last year across the Commonwealth, we actually saw significantly higher increases at the national level.

[00:36:43] The chronic absenteeism rate, according to Ed Week, was 17% two years ago, and it was in the low 30s in 21-22, actually three years ago compared to two years ago. So while we're seeing increases, it's a national issue. We actually conducted some analysis of the last two years of school and to look at actual patterns. And what we found was that students who were chronically absent compared to students who were not, where nationally we would expect to see significant differences, we did not see significant differences in behavioral data, meaning office referrals, medical concerns, or mental health support conferences

[00:37:22] between our chronically absent students and students who were not. We saw a slight difference in academic struggles with a higher percentage of chronically absent students experiencing D's or F's. But that was a little confounding because it didn't match the risk factors from the nation.

[00:37:37] We also saw last year was that we looked at some of our attendance data for certain days. And whereas our average numbers of students absent was around 50, 157 students, Our high absenteeism days were actually around some of our holidays and some of our holidays that we're recognizing for the first time.

[00:37:58] For example, the Friday before Indigenous Peoples' Day, 7,000 students were absent last year over the average of 5,100. This year, interestingly enough, last Friday it was 4,000 students instead of 7,000 last year.

[00:38:13] So this gives you an idea of the context of chronic absenteeism. It's something that is escalating for us in this case. 13 to 19 percent. It increased even more for the commonwealth and even more for the the country. So the next slide you'll see we actually had 66 of our schools were identified as level two or three and in this particular case nine were level three and you're thinking that is significant it is. Nine percent of our schools were identified. For the neighboring uh region four schools it was

[00:38:49] 25 percent of their schools were identified as level three so the context of this is that there is a challenge with chronic absenteeism escalating whereas we do we're not seeing some of the significant differences between the risk factors for the groups it's significant when students miss instructional time and it does it does have an impact on students schools abilities to serve students and we will talk next about some of the steps we're taking to address this pattern that

[00:39:20] we're seeing in LCPS? What are we doing to support our students? Central office teams are providing resources and trainings to school attendance teams to address chronic absenteeism.

[00:39:36] We have an attendance landing page that is available to the greater LCPS community. We're supporting principals directly. Central office staff have also established a chronic absenteeism work group to look at the development of consistent practices and to create tools such as the click student engagement app training staff to support attendance through our multi-tiered system of support module the work group has also shifted their practices to address excused

[00:40:11] absences in addition to unexcused absences. We also hold lots of community attendance presentations, such as partnerships with our family and community engagement face office, parents as educational partners, and attendance will be presented at the PTA resource fair, which will take place tomorrow evening. We also host parent coffees and support the mental health and wellness conference which will be in january of 2024 with the additional funds afforded to lcps

[00:40:47] through the all-in virginia plan else the our lcps team is reviewing additional resources and experiences for students and and families to encourage attendance through the lens of the following areas early intervention and monitoring parent engagement positive school climate student engagement community partnerships mentoring and counseling health and wellness an updated

[00:41:21] attendance policy flexible learning options professional development for staff and the support of school-wide e-initiatives and finally shifting to our accreditation status on the next slide this slide 49 as you all are familiar with at this point in your tenure on the board the Virginia Board of Education has regulations establishing standards for accrediting public

[00:41:56] schools in Virginia and they are designed to ensure that an effective educational program is established and maintained in each of our public schools. This slide has a list of the indicators that are included in accreditation. You all are familiar with those, and we've gone through many of them this evening.

[00:42:16] I did want to point out on the high school column, the student engagement list also includes, for the first time this year, the College Career and Civic Readiness Index, or CCCRI. And that has been, the information has been gathered and this is the first time it's being used in accreditation of our high schools.

[00:42:39] And so if you'll go to the next slide, you'll see that LCPS has 98 schools, all of which are accredited. We do have one high school, Parkview High School, is listed as accredited with conditions this year. Parkview High School has opportunities for improvement and will receive support from central office teams, specifically in the areas of chronic absenteeism, dropout rate, and the College and Career and Civic Readiness Index, or that CCCRI Index.

[00:43:11] Two, what are we doing to support all of our students and schools in accreditation? The Department of Academics teams, so that includes the Department of Teaching and Learning, the Department of Student Services, and the Division of Research Assessment and School Improvement.

[00:43:28] We are all collaborating to meet with schools with different accreditation level needs to plan for ongoing supports. So schools that are identified as level one, we will work with them to monitor their performance and update their school improvement plans as needed.

[00:43:47] Schools identified as level two, we will work with them to implement strategies to close achievement gaps and update their school improvement plan as needed. And level three will receive even additional support. Those schools will work collaboratively with our teams to conduct an academic review, implement those strategies, and update their school improvement plans as needed.

[00:44:12] So with that, I know that is a lot of information thrown at you at once. There are many more slides in the appendix for your review and additional attachments in board docs. As a school division, we strive to provide students the most valuable educational experiences to meet their needs.

[00:44:29] We're working hard to close these achievement gaps. So in the spirit of our core value of continuous improvement, we are here to answer any questions you might have. Thank you, Dr. Ellis and team.

[00:44:47] It's quite a bit of a presentation to unpack. So I guess I know we have no delay.

[00:45:20] I guess I will open up for questions from the board members. Mr. Morse. Thank you. A lot of very important information. Obviously, we're getting our metrics down. We're starting to understand them. And the impacts that we've had over the last two years are going to continue to be felt.

[00:45:37] And I think that we're seeing that as we're going to continue to see that through our numbers as the students track through high school. Because you can't make up a year of education. So if they struggled through two years during COVID, recovery is going to be very difficult, and that learning curve is going to be steep.

[00:45:56] A couple concerns I have. The first science participation grade in SOLs was only 88%, but the math and reading were up in the high 90s. Why is it that the students aren't taking, how are they able to not take a science SOL, but they're taking the math and the English?

[00:46:20] If you don't have that now, that can be a question. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. Are you referring to slide 55 in the in the backups? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. We can take that as a question. Okay. Each year we talk about the growth mindset and Dr. Tyler, I know we have this discussion at least once a year. And my question is always, why are we not identifying the map achievement percentiles as well? There are two factors that go into the map scores. One of them is the achievement percentile. One of them is the growth percentile. It's hard to know how we're

[00:46:58] doing if if we don't know where we're starting right the map percentile tells us what the starting point is are we starting with as one of the lowest districts are we starting as one of the highest districts so i i think that uh those two different scenarios end up with different results because clearly there's a lot of growth mindset available if uh if we're very low on the initial percentile so i would like to know how the schools stand as far as the map uh the map achievement percentiles

[00:47:29] So I do remember those conversations. I know in the spring we can point you to what we provide in the spring where typically we're at the 62nd, 63rd percentile for achievement before the pandemic and we were like 54th and 53rd percentile for growth.

[00:47:48] So we're actually starting to approach that 62 and 63rd percentile for achievement in the fall once again. So we can share that again and maybe add it as an attachment. But we're very close to those achievement percentiles from before the pandemic and have approached the growth percentile for math and not quite there for reading.

[00:48:11] And we can share that. I was encouraged to see the growth still over 50%, but, of course, the expectation with the resources that we're providing in this county, our expectations are always going to be higher than that. So I'm hopeful that the continued investments that we've made, particularly in literacy, are going to pay huge dividends down the road.

[00:48:31] The last comment deals with the training, and I see our solution to many of these problems as adding more training. And I'm concerned about the effectiveness of the current training that we have. Let's set literacy aside because we have to completely retrain on literacy.

[00:50:19] And we're going to provide them more facilitators. I think what I'd be more focused on is trying to reduce the number of students per instructor or, you know, reduce those rates in the classroom instead of adding management levels, instead of adding facilitators.

[00:50:37] I really would like to try to see the numbers that the course loads be reduced, specifically for Tier 2 and Tier 3 issues. When we get into kids with special needs and kids in the EL community, I think that it's vital for them to get more one-on-one or one-on-few opportunities to try to make up for the gaps that we have that are persistent and continue to challenge us.

[00:51:06] So I just, that is my thought on where we would be focusing. And if we're going to be adding more training for teachers and there's a tremendous workload on our teachers today, I think we need to be looking at reducing training in other areas and find out what are our priorities and we should be training to those priorities.

[00:51:27] Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Pogodagpe? Thank you. I thank you for the presentation. I had one small question, but specifically related to the graduation data where we have information by specific groups of students.

[00:51:47] I assume that if a student is in multiple groups, they are included in the percentage for each group. Is that correct? So students are being counted in all groups that they are a part of? That is correct, except in the case of the racial ethnicity categories, those are exclusive.

[00:52:06] But you can be a student in a particular racial affinity category and be in the economically disadvantaged and be in the English learner group. So you can have duplication. Thank you. Ms. Polifko.

[00:52:26] Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I wanted to revisit the slide regarding the pass rates for students with disabilities. And I bring this up because I anticipated that there would be highlighted coverage over the fact that we have exceeded the state average in our division, which is true.

[00:52:46] But it is concerning that from 2020 to 2021 all the way up to 2023, we've seen a drop in our student performance specifically related to our students with disabilities in reading on those pass rates, the proficient rates for the English reading SOL. We went from 51 in 2020 to 2021 down to 50 in 2021-22 and then remained stagnant at 50 in 2022-23.

[00:53:12] So that is definitely a concern to me, and I did come into the meeting late, so I did miss probably some of the strategies that we plan to put into place to remediate those issues. But another concern that I have regarding the high-dosage tutoring that we'll probably be talking about a little bit later this evening is, has there been discussion about how that will be delivered?

[00:53:32] How are we going to deliver that tutoring? Who is going to be delivering it? Obviously, these decisions are going to be flexible, related to school division. Other school divisions are gonna handle it differently. My understanding is that especially students at the elementary school level did not access the tutoring when we had that program available.

[00:53:55] And my bigger concern is that when we see those students in third, fourth, and fifth grade that are low proficient, they end up becoming not proficient as they get older. So I have a lot of concerns about how we're going to address that.

[00:54:11] And then the other piece of this regarding the conditional growth percentiles from 2021 to 2022 and then 2023, as you stated earlier, we're stagnant there as well. We're not seeing any, really any movement.

[00:54:31] And in some cases we're seeing dropping across tier one, tier two, and tier three. And then in addition to that, we say that we're going to plan to deliver differentiated instruction, but aren't teachers already doing it? I mean, teachers are already differentiating their instruction.

[00:54:46] So if you could provide maybe a little bit more specific information about how that's going to be targeted, like what type of differentiated instruction are we looking at? And I absolutely agree with what Mr. Morse said earlier. I think our focus really needs to be putting those resources in the classroom.

[00:55:04] We already have so much of our budget being allocated towards administrative departments and employees within those administrative departments. Our real main focus here in Loudoun County is to educate students.

[00:55:20] And we're seeing scores that are not indicative of what we should be doing to provide a world-class education for all of our students. So I would love to hear some feedback on differentiated instruction. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Polifco. If I may share a little bit of information about the tutoring, I think you walked in just like two slides later, and then ask anyone on the team to jump in with more specific examples.

[00:55:46] So regarding the high-dosage tutoring, you are correct. The elementary students did not access, well, across the board, students did not access the virtual tutoring, particularly at the elementary school level. The guidance from the VDOE has been that the high-dosage tutoring is best when it's in-person, done by a trained tutor.

[00:56:08] And so the work group that has met once last week, they'll meet again tomorrow, and the following week with all the principals is really focused on that in-person tutoring with training. There will be digital content provided by VDOE for both reading and math, so the trained tutors will have access to that digital content.

[00:56:29] but the idea is that a student will work in a small group, to your point and Mr. Morse's point about smaller class sizes. Tutoring is also best done in small groups. I think VDOE recommends no more than 10 students per group with that tutor, so in-person tutoring is what we're aiming for.

[00:56:49] In terms of the specifics of how that's rolled out, we should have more information for the board and the families in the coming month. We're just not there yet in our planning. hope that helps a little bit. Thank you. Mr. Beatty. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Going back to comparing us to other divisions, as Mr. Morse was talking about, when we talk about the SOL data, can we also, and I assume this is available because it's state data, can we also provide sort of, I think the core title is the right term, it's sort of where we rank sort of statewide, because I mean, it's great that we're above Virginia's average, but it would also be helpful to understand where we fall within Virginia as a whole, so that sort of the upper bound of that

[00:57:29] range and the lower bound too so we can see kind of as a better comparison and I think that would help give us more confidence as we go over this so thank you thank you I do have I guess I know it's a huge slide deck so I have a few questions and so first I'll start with my sort of soap box about the data besides PDF shared in Excel I don't know if we can I mean that'll be it'll be helpful, Dr. Ellis, if you can share the data through Excel, not just through PDF.

[00:58:06] My sort of second, sort of broader question, I think, where Mr. Beatty sort of touched on, and I see in the appendix slides where we have Virginia Beach, Dr. Spence, in a few of the slides there. Coming on the board, I think we always wanted to be, I mean, my at least desires, I mean, I think on the board, including the strategic plan, is we want to be the best division in in not only in the state but in the country so comparing with virginia is fine but again maybe mr baity was touching on it or not but i think create a cohort of let's say the top 10 divisions

[00:58:44] in virginia so we're comparing not necessarily the data i know it's a little bit more work because now you have to aggregate the numbers of those uh the 10 virginia divisions versus comparing to just virginia because i think we we want to be in the top to at least compare to see how well we're doing I think this some of the slides in the appendix sort of you compare that with our neighboring school like Fairfax Prince William and Virginia Beach and we see that some of the numbers we are doing better than Fairfax and Prince William but I think we are a little bit sort of behind in Virginia Beach so I think having a cohort I think will give us a better

[00:59:22] average assessment than just comparing with Virginia so that's sort of my I I don't know comment or I'm going back for the for the future of it on slide number 23 I think this is the crutch of the not necessarily let me go back to my slide 23 bear with me so this is I think sort of encompassing the some of the strategies of how we can address catching up

[00:59:58] with whether it's SOL or map etc we have I mean again besides the the department instructions who has an amazing staff. We also have amazing teachers in the school as well.

[01:00:14] And again, this is just a thought because I think we begin thinking about this and Dr. Spence, it's almost requiring, if you have a crisis, and I think, Mr. Morris, if you agree, you need all hands on deck. I think it comes from somewhere in the Navy, I guess, and all hands on deck.

[01:00:34] So I don't know if that would be something to think about to bring in the thought leadership in place, not only from the administration building, but from teachers who have been in the field for many, many years to bring them to the table and say, well, from social studies improvement cohort or mathematics or English or whatever the subject that we're looking to do is to, you know, as much as we can get that thought leadership from people who have been on the ground, I think that will be awesome because I think it does require that we put a lot of energy into figuring out how did we go forward from here,

[01:01:12] and especially the learning loss part of it. And then on slide 47, I think we talked about the chronic absenteeism. I know, Mr. Richardson, we have spoken about the different strategies, and I think we address that the chronic absenteeism perhaps has nothing to do with behaviors and other factors, and I think, you know, alluded to something like where parents are taking day off.

[01:01:45] So one thing I did not see in the slide, but maybe it was embedded, I think you spoke to it but was not there, is a parent's communication, like almost like we need to have a huge, just like we talk about see something, say something kind of approach, where parents need to be aware that even if you notify the schools that you're taking the child out, it's affecting the chronic absenteeism across the board.

[01:02:04] i think that message is still not with the parents i think that they believe i think that's how and what does that really mean to school division also their tradition and everything else it it impacts our school division as well um so on that i guess the question would be if i know we're looking at one year data now what would that number be if it was two year data going back to how originally it was i think the change happened last year now their tradition is going to be looking at one year chronic absenteeism data versus two years? I don't know. I'm just curious what the data looks like with two years versus one year. Is the numbers will be still bad? I mean,

[01:02:42] I don't know. Not that you have access to the data right now, but I'm just curious to see what that numbers could look like. I don't know. So just before the pandemic, it was, I remember the number being around 11 or 12 percent. Because of the adjustments we made to the attendance requirements it was in the single digits in the pandemic but that's because we were recording attendance as students getting into digital content so it really only escalated last year going from 11 12 percent the single digits during the pandemic to 19 last year the historical data

[01:03:20] indicates that was the first time it really started trending up outside of the conditions in the pandemic the question is i think i know this is something we've talked about bridges and math intervention. So there are certain programs on slide number 27 where Ms. Richardson sort of spoke about new investment, and again I'll use example of math intervention, where we're also doing a pilot across five elementary schools. Are we applying similar approaches for the EL students or general students too? Are we looking at some programs to help those students as well,

[01:03:59] not just the SPED students, I don't know, Dr. Ellis and a few, Mrs. Levin. So across the board, we're, for reading, for example, that's, we'll actually be talking about that in our next work session on early literacy, waiting for the VDOE to release their list of approved interventions and supports for reading, and we'll definitely be thinking across the board when it comes to making decisions such as that.

[01:04:28] We're also evaluating the interventions we have in place for general ed students in math, for EL students in special ed as well. So those decisions are made and reviewed annually. And my last question is, I think the McKinney-Vento students, I think the numbers you shared were 1,700 to 1,800 students approximately?

[01:04:50] Yes. When I arrived in a division 10 years ago, I remember the numbers being 2,400 and 500. And the last time we checked, and we can verify that, but it has increased much more dramatically than our enrollment. It's increased. So is this number that, I don't know, can we share that by school, like what the numbers look like per school?

[01:05:13] Any further questions? Ms. Reeser, any questions from your end? Well, thank you, everybody, for sharing this. I know it's quite a bit impact. I'm sorry, I couldn't get to the mute button fast enough.

[01:05:30] I thank my colleagues for asking all of those great questions, and thank you for the presentation to the staff. Thank you again. We'll move to item number 402.

[01:05:44] So we'll move to item number 402, Department of Teaching and Learning.

[01:06:12] Access to Literacy for All, and we'll give the staff a few minutes to settle on.

[01:06:27] Mr. Slevin, I'm going to pass it on to you. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair.

[01:06:42] Ms. Byrne is distributing a few key slides from the presentation this evening for your reference as we go through the presentation. Today, we are pleased to give you an update on the Access to Literacy for All project. Throughout this work session, we plan to pause to ask for insight and input from board members.

[01:07:02] This project has been a true testament to collaboration and we are excited to share how are we supporting the staff and students of LCPS. I did want to take a moment to do a call back to the One LCPS Spotlight last month from Catocting Elementary School on the UFLY implementation of UFLY and later this evening you'll receive a One LCPS Spotlight from Eagle Ridge Middle School on their specialized instruction in reading and math this afternoon.

[01:07:28] As I mentioned, this project has been a collaborative effort between a variety of offices within LCPS. Here with us to lead the work session, we have Ms. Margaret Osbury, our supervisor of specialized instruction. We have Ms. Heather Crawford from the Office of English Learners, the supervisor of elementary English learners specifically, and Ms. Catherine Neal, supervisor for early literacy in elementary reading and writing.

[01:07:51] So I'll turn it over to Catherine. - Good afternoon. During our time together this afternoon, we will reground ourselves in what the science of reading is and how it drives our work forward. We will then provide a high-level overview of our major accomplishments with the Access to Literacy for All project.

[01:08:13] There is a significant interest in our K-2 core resource adoption process, so we would like to update the board on where we are so far and what to anticipate in the coming weeks. We will then finish our time with an update on what literacy instruction looks like in LCPS this year and close with updates from the Virginia Department of Education.

[01:08:34] Before we continue, I'd like to draw your attention to the handouts that you have been provided. The first page will provide you with a detailed calendar for our K-2 core resource adoption, along with some helpful links you might find useful as you work and engage with your communities.

[01:08:51] The first link is the family resource page provided by the Virginia Literacy Partnership Office. The second link is a link to our core resource adoption review page. This page is public and open to the LCPS community.

[01:09:07] On that page, members of our community will find instructions for how to access materials provided from each vendor for review. Additionally, there are various helpful links to documents from the VDOE. Community members will find links to the Virginia Literacy Act, the Core Resource Instructional Guide, and a link to access the VDOE page that houses the completed rubrics for each core resource that was reviewed by the state.

[01:09:38] On the second page, you'll find an overview for how we are engaging with the community. Lastly, we have provided you with a page for any notes you'd like to capture. As we continue through this presentation, we'd like you to consider what information you might need to support your community members or what questions they may have regarding elementary literacy.

[01:10:01] Let's begin by revisiting what the science of reading is and why we are moving towards significant changes within literacy instruction. On the screen, you can see the definition for the science of reading as found in the Virginia Literacy Act.

[01:10:18] Science-based reading research means research that applies rigorous, systematic, and objective, observational, or experimental procedures to obtain valid knowledge relevant to reading development, reading instruction, and reading and writing difficulties, and explains how proficient reading and writing develop, why some children have difficulties developing key literacy skills, and how schools can best assess and instruct early literacy, including the use of evidence-based instructional practices to promote reading and writing development.

[01:10:57] The definition provided with the Virginia Literacy Act is a great place to start, but what does this look like? On the screen, you can see Scarborough's Reading Rope. This visual is commonly shared in conjunction with the science of reading.

[01:11:13] We know from science-based reading research that children learn to read and write in a very systematic way. Our brains are not naturally wired to read and write, so we need to provide very explicit and systematic instruction to create those pathways in the brain.

[01:11:31] Reading instruction can be grouped into two larger skill domains: word recognition and language comprehension. Within each of those larger skill domains, you will find a variety of specific skills students need to master. For example, as you look at word recognition, you will find phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition. These skills represent the code-based side of reading instruction. Under language comprehension, you will find skills needed to support comprehension

[01:12:04] of text, such as background knowledge, vocabulary, and language structure, just to name a few. As children are learning to read, they need to be automatic or fluent with their word recognition skills, the red rope, while language comprehension skills, the blue rope, require students to think strategically as they encounter new texts. Both the red rope and the blue rope are required in order for students to master skilled reading which is defined as fluent execution and coordination of word recognition and language comprehension. So what does this

[01:12:44] look like in practice? This visual was created by the National Reading Panel and is known as the Five Pillars of Literacy. Each of these pillars is home to a specific set of skills. Those skills are what we referenced on the previous slide with the red and blue strands of the reading rope. The five pillars help us to conceptualize what components need to be present in well-rounded literacy instruction. We know from science-based reading research that we cannot just teach one pillar of literacy. For example, if we were to only focus on phonemic awareness or phonics during literacy instruction, the pillars would be unbalanced and crumble.

[01:13:24] Conversely, if we only teach comprehension or vocabulary without specific code-based instruction, the pillars are not able to stand. To master all skills found in the reading rope, students need access to high-quality literacy instruction that includes explicit skill work for phonemic awareness, phonics, and word study, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension as part of their daily literacy instruction.

[01:13:50] To support teachers and leaders with this, we have used this visual on the literacy resources we have provided throughout the division and have offered learning around the five pillars and their importance related to literacy instruction. We have been working collaboratively to be transparent about our work, next steps, and to ensure all stakeholders are supported with literacy instruction.

[01:14:15] This timeline visual depicts the major accomplishments we have made as a division since the creation of the Virginia Literacy Act, which has been a catalyst for driving our literacy change work. There is quite a lot here on the screen, so we will continue to highlight some of these major accomplishments, and you do have access to this slide should you wish to take a more detailed look.

[01:14:35] As we continue to make changes to literacy instruction, professional learning has been a consistent topic of conversation. We know that teachers and leaders need to have access to high-quality professional learning that supports growing their own professional skills regarding literacy instruction.

[01:14:53] Early on in our project, we learned that if professional learning is provided in silos regarding job titles, for example, this specific learning is only offered to EL teachers, or this learning is only for classroom teachers, we are not going to be able to create consistency with instructional practices. Instead, we focused our efforts on which office would host professional learning and the management, opening it to all interested stakeholders. Specifically, my office of specialized instruction hosted offerings for professional learning around specialized reading, such as Orton-Gillingham, and provided support for teachers around how to use updated instructional match making for students with reading related disabilities. The English Learner Office has

[01:15:30] offered cohorts of quality teaching for English learners or QTEL and provided guidance for all teachers and leaders around how EL teachers are supporting grades K2 and students in 3-5 with limited or interrupted schooling that have needs connected to explicit foundational literacy skill instruction. The Office of Elementary Reading and Writing has provided cohorts of language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling or letters and has provided offerings for all teachers with a series of professional learning related to the science of reading and evidence-based instructional practices for literacy. We will continue to provide offerings to support all

[01:16:04] elementary teachers and leaders as we move forward in this work. Some of our major accomplishments so far include continued partnerships with professional organizations. We continue our work with the National Center on Improving Literacy and the Virginia Literacy Partnership Office. Our work with both of these organizations includes how to support teachers with evidence-based literacy instruction in conjunction with navigating new learning around the updated literacy screener.

[01:16:34] This school year, we successfully rolled out University of Florida Literacy Institute, or UFLY, foundations for all K-2 classrooms as our core phonics program. The rollout of UFLY has been a huge celebration point for teachers and students. We will share more details about UFLY in a moment. In addition to the implementation of UFLY in all K-2 classrooms, we've also administered the Virginia Language and Literacy Screening System, also known as VALS.

[01:16:58] This screener was previously known as PALS and is provided across the Commonwealth by the University of Virginia. Internally, we have created a core literacy team that consists of representation from the Elementary Reading and Writing Office, the Office of Special Education, Office of Elementary English Learners, Office of Research, Accountability, and School Improvement, and Response to Intervention Team.

[01:17:20] Our team meets on a regular cadence with the goal of ongoing collaboration across our offices to create a unified approach to literacy instruction for all elementary teachers and leaders. We also share ideas and insight regarding how our collective team of instructional facilitators support schools with evidence-based literacy instructional practices. Finally, we will be presenting at the VASCD conference to share the literacy accomplishments we've made here in LCPS.

[01:17:48] A quick recap of the Access to Literacy for All project from a high-level overview begins in late 2021 with the creation of the project following the external review and report from the new teacher project, TNTP, and the creation of the Virginia Literacy Act. The major components of the Virginia Literacy Act include a need for evidence-based literacy instruction in all K-3 classrooms. All school divisions within the state of Virginia are required to implement a state approved curriculum resource by the fall of 2024. This piece of legislation was later amended to include grades four through eight and will require all classrooms in grades K5 to implement a state

[01:18:26] approved evidence-based literacy program by fall of 2024. Around the same time, the English learner program underwent an external review from WestEd. The report findings indicate that there is a need for increased opportunities for expressive language in classroom instruction, as well as explicit instruction on syntax, vocabulary, and building background. From the reading group, we know these skills are critical components of language comprehension or the blue strand. With all this information, our core literacy team set out to adopt a new K-5 core literacy resource that would support all elementary students, including those who receive special education services, English

[01:19:03] learner services, and those who require differentiated classroom instruction. We began our K-5 core literacy resource adoption process in the fall of 2022. Throughout this process, we continued to receive updates from the VDOE. We knew from the Virginia Literacy Act that all school divisions in Virginia would need to adopt a core resource from a list of state-approved curricula. As we neared the end of our core adoption resource process, in December we still did not have a list of approved resources. After deliberations and weighing the pros and cons of pausing our adoption, the school board ultimately decided to pause the adoption process and wait for additional

[01:19:40] guidance from VDOE. Based on this decision, the core literacy team continued on with our contingency plan to support schools. Collectively, our team updated, reformatted, rewrote, and supported teachers with explicit lesson instruction for reading and writing within the units of study resources. On May 11, 2023, the VDOE released its recommended core instructional program guide, which provided an overview of state-approved curriculum options, as well as a brief overview of their rating. The Virginia Literacy Act initially centered on supporting students in kindergarten through third grades. Therefore, this first iteration of the recommended core

[01:20:19] instructional program guide focuses on curriculum for K-3. Approximately a year later, the Virginia Literacy Act was amended to include grades 4 through 8. The second iteration of the recommended core instructional program guide will include curriculum options for grades 4 and 5 and is anticipated to be released in December of this year. Once this new guide is released from the VDOE, LCPS will hold a core resource adoption process for grades 3 through 5. We have briefly shared about the updates across the Access to Literacy for All project to date, and part

[01:20:54] of that is our core resource adoption. We'd like to take a few moments to provide some updates regarding where we are in our process so far. We mentioned a few slides ago that the Virginia Literacy Act will require full implementation of all requirements by the fall of 2024. Part of this legislation is the implementation of a state-approved evidence-based literacy program. Since the recommended core instructional program guide was provided by the VDOE outlining approved curricula and knowing a grades four through five guide will be forthcoming, the

[01:21:31] core literacy team made the decision to proceed with a K-2 core resource adoption. We launched the adoption process in August with a call for volunteers to participate as part of our review committee. Within the core instructional program guide from the VDOE, there are eight approved resources. We are pleased that all eight programs have agreed to participate in the LCPS adoption process. You can see those publishers and programs on the screen. Here we have outlined for you stakeholders that are part of our review committee. We have a wide array of parents

[01:22:10] involved, including those appointed from school board members and those who represent our parent organizations such as SEAC and MSAC. In addition to a high level of parent involvement, our core literacy team felt it was also critical to have robust school-based representation.

[01:22:27] We know that the insight and expertise from our teachers and building leaders is an essential component of successful implementation. We have representatives from all grade levels, K through 2, English learner teachers, special education teachers, reading specialists, and building administrators, including principals and assistant principals.

[01:22:48] From a division level we have members from our core literacy team participating in the review as well as representation from our dual language immersion program. This committee is working collaboratively to review all eight programs participating in our review.

[01:23:07] We have provided all board members with a detailed calendar of our adoption process. Here you can see a high level of some important dates. We started our K-2 core resource adoption review process in September with vendor introductions from all eight programs. As a core literacy team we felt it was important to help committee members understand how to navigate each resource as they begin to review. During the vendor introductions we asked all eight vendors to share how their program aligns with the science of reading, how their program will support our diverse community here in LCPS, address

[01:23:42] its successes and challenges that were outlined in the core resource program guide provided from the BDOE, and anything else they felt would be important for our committee to know about their program since then our review committee has been busy reviewing all materials on November 1st school reviews will begin all 59 elementary schools will be provided with materials from our top three vendors these will be available for community members and school staff to review public reviews will be open for two weeks on November 28th we will provide the board with an

[01:24:19] information item regarding our top three finalists as well as our top overall all finalists. At that time, a public preview of our top program will open. The process will conclude on December 12th with a vote from the school board to adopt our recommended core resource.

[01:24:35] Since the beginning of the K-2 core resource adoption, transparency has been a top priority for our team. We have requested that all eight programs provide access to the public to review materials. Programs are available both digitally and physically. All materials have been made available digitally on the LCPS textbook webpage. On this page, community members are able to access a K-2 core resource adoption landing page where they will find instructions for viewing all online materials from all eight programs. Additionally, we have asked for physical copies of all materials

[01:25:13] from all eight programs to be made available. These resources are housed here in the administration building in the lobby outside of the school boardrooms. To help support public access to review materials, we have extended review hours. The public is able to view materials every weekday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Once the top three finalists are determined, those materials will be available in the administration building as well as all 59 elementary schools. Access to all materials will end on November 16th after school reviews close. Moving forward, our grades three through five core

[01:25:52] resource adoption process will begin in early January 2024. The VDOE has shared that they anticipate an updated version of the recommended core instructional program guide to be released and approved by the Virginia Board of Education in December of this year. In LCPS we plan to begin forming the resource review committee for these materials in early December so the formal process can begin when we return from winter break. We are expediting the start of this timeline so the public has adequate time to review all resources. We anticipate a final recommendation for grades 3 through 5 will be brought to the board in early April. It is important

[01:26:29] we remember that no core program exists that will meet the needs of every student. Some form of supplemental and intervention materials will be necessary. As part of the Virginia Literacy Act, the VDOE will also be publishing a list of approved materials to be used for supplemental instruction and intervention. School divisions will be required to select from these materials.

[01:26:49] We will begin reviewing approved supplemental and intervention materials once those resources have been identified by the state. We want to pause here to offer an opportunity to reflect and what we've shared so far. We'd like you to consider what is resonating with you so far.

[01:27:06] Additionally, how might we continue to strengthen our efforts to connect with our LCPS community? And we would invite you to please share as you feel ready to do so. So, Mr. Slevin, you want us to pause and ask questions so far?

[01:27:22] Is that the intent? Yes, we have additional information to share, but knowing that we're giving you a lot, we wanted to pause and see if you had any questions or feedback on the initial slides, recognizing that we have some additional content to cover. Okay, board members, Mr. Morris and Ms. Elkedeck Bay.

[01:27:42] Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I'm very enthusiastic. I think that, you know, the state has finally gotten moving, and I think that we were ahead of that, but now we're on board. So I'm encouraged there. And I'm encouraged that we're able to provide hard copies to every school.

[01:27:58] I think that's significant. I think a lot of the time consideration is done up here at the admin building and without necessarily the feedback that we're getting from each individual school. So I thank you for making that available. And correct me if I'm wrong, but those are available to the public at each school as well?

[01:28:15] That's correct. That's something that we'll be working with principals next week to talk through their process of allowing parents to come in and view the materials as well. Ms. Ogaduck-Bay and then Mr. Beatty.

[01:28:32] Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I really appreciate this presentation and the information that you've shared. One question I have, and we talked about this in the spring when we were talking about what this new process would look like, because it's not necessary for us to go through a formal RFP process, so I understand some of the restrictions around what was able to be shared or not shared last year were driven by that.

[01:28:57] We had talked about the ability to share the survey data from the review committee, and I'm hoping that we would have a chance to see both the scores and some of the narrative feedback along with you know what type of constituent are you um from that review committee so i'm wondering when we'll have a chance to see that ahead of when we're making a decision later this fall so yes we're collecting that that data and when we do come to the board with the information

[01:29:37] item we'll be we'll be including additional information such as you mentioned thank you mr brady thank you very much thank you for this presentation and the work you're doing on helping improve the reading so you you asked the question how might we be continue to strengthen our efforts to connect with our LCPS community and as I go through this presentation I have done some of the research in the reading and stuff but honestly I'm not really sure what's exactly changing other than we're getting new textbooks so it would I think it'd be helpful I mean for me as a school member but I think for parents in general if you could explain like why

[01:30:13] this is better what's improving what's gonna be different as I look over this I don't see sight words anywhere. I think that's one of those big changes. I know my my oldest son thrived with sight words. He got them but he's been a phenomenal reader and then my other son struggled with sight words and I think like that this he but when he went to phonics which I believe is a science of reading you know in a layman's term like he did really well with that. So I think if we can explain kind of in a more layman's level if you will because this is very jargony it's very technical but if we could really explain like why this is better what's exactly going to change, how it's going to improve your child's ability to read. I think that would be

[01:30:52] really key in terms of connecting with the community. Thank you. Ms. Reeser, since I don't see you, I don't know if you have any questions. I'll go to Ms. Belifco. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. The adoption of UFLY at all K-2 schools now is excellent. Did that start at the

[01:31:26] beginning of this school year? Yes, for all elementary schools K-2, it did begin at the beginning of this year. Yes. Excellent. And will we be able to compare data from PALS previously taken when UFLY was not being implemented at all schools K-2, elementary schools K-2, to the new VALS? So I guess my question is, will VALS be scored as PALS was? Did it just assume a new name or is the assessment itself being scored differently? I'm just looking for how we can

[01:32:02] compare baseline data? That's a really good question. VALS is a completely new screener. And so we've been told from the Virginia Literacy Partnership Office, formerly the PALS office, that we will not be able to compare both screeners. Thank you. But I'm hoping that we can, with the passage of time, at least within the next school year, I'm hoping that we'll be able to see scores where we want them to be. Because when Catoctin came and provided their presentation um several weeks ago they had extremely favorable results for pals and so i'm hoping that we'll see

[01:32:41] the same thing over time with ufly thank you thank you miss reason another call do you have any questions yes i i do not have any questions but i am going to log out and log back in because my buttons are a little bit laggy thank you my my only question i think since we have those materials out there for the public to come and review in the admission building uh and i know There is a feedback form, feedback comment form, that's also available online.

[01:33:12] I don't know, do you have any numbers, how much feedback we received so far, and are we going to be presenting that data also at some particular point, along with the committee's sort of feedback with it? Right. So I believe our plan is to present some of the overall feedback from the community, along with the committee, the review committee feedback, when we come back with the information item.

[01:33:37] Thank you for the presentation. Well, actually, you can continue with the further slides, too. I guess with no further questions, we can continue. Thank you. So we've shared quite a lot regarding our upcoming core resources.

[01:33:55] However, we'd like to take an opportunity to share with you what we're currently doing to support literacy instruction and LCPS. As mentioned at the beginning of our presentation, we began full implementation of the University of Florida Literacy Institute, or UFLY Foundations. This is our core phonics instruction for this year.

[01:34:14] We have purchased copies of the manual for all K-2 teachers across our 59 elementary schools in addition we provided copies for el and special education teachers to also support this instruction after the decision to pause our adoption process in december of last year we knew support would need to be provided for teachers during that time we learned about the successes across the country as other divisions implemented ufly foundations manuals were purchased for all schools in april of 2023 with the guidance that teachers may begin working and getting familiar with UFLY Foundations during the spring of 2023, but full implementation

[01:34:48] would not be required until August of 2023. What makes UFLY Foundations so unique? Of all products available, why did we decide to select UFLY Foundations? First and arguably most important, UFLY Foundations is both a research and evidence-based program that is supported by the science of reading research and aligns with evidence-based literacy practices. The content within UFLY Foundations provides support in both word recognition and language comprehension strands, as outlined in the reading rope visual. It was important for the team that a core phonics program support not only word recognition skill instruction, but also language comprehension

[01:35:27] skill instruction. This program also provides a supportive structure and abundance of resources for teachers. On the screen, you can see a sample of what a UFLY Foundations lesson template looks like. Within the manual, this is what is provided for all lessons. The plans are built with an explicit lesson structure that follows an I do, we do, you do format. Across the components of the lesson, teachers will model using the skill, which is the I do piece, followed by students practicing together, or we do. Towards the end of the lesson, students independently practice the

[01:36:02] skill, which is the you do piece of the lesson. The explicit, predictable, and consistent routines in lesson structure is supportive for all students, but specifically those who are receiving EL and special education instruction. Teachers are provided with a script for each lesson piece. UFLY also provides Google Slides that accompany all lessons for our students to view during instruction. An important aspect of why UFLY was selected also includes its sequential and cumulative scope and sequence. Within evidence-based literacy instruction, we know that it's important for skills to be repeated and reviewed systematically for students to continue practicing and

[01:36:39] ultimately mastering. In addition to its structured review, UFLY pieces each lesson in a systematic structure where each skill will build on the next. Finally, while UFLY Foundations is our core phonics program and as such it is implemented a whole group daily, the contents of UFLY can be easily adapted to provide small group instruction to those students in need of reinforcement and additional practice. UFLY Foundations is part of our core instruction for literacy. All five pillars must be present across literacy

[01:37:14] instruction each day. UFLY addresses some of these pillars but not all. What What you see on the screen has been provided to all teachers and building leaders around the vision for literacy best practices. It outlines all five pillars and their connection to literacy.

[01:37:31] On the next few slides, we outline guidance we have shared with teachers around how the five pillars connect with our instructional practices in LCPS. As we move forward towards a new core resource, it is important that we continue to grow our work around literacy instruction within evidence-based instructional practices, not necessarily grounding ourselves in practices within a resource.

[01:37:58] Within our literacy guidance, we have provided direct connections to the five pillars of literacy. Each pillar is outlined specifically on its own respective page, each pillar is defined and the skill is named, the LCPS provided resource for the pillar is listed, a progression of skills K through 5 is provided for each pillar, and we have outlined the instructional practices and look fors for each pillar. This work has been pulled together into a literacy best practices document that is shared with teachers and leaders. We have also provided a copy for each of you. Additionally, we have done extensive work with principals regarding

[01:38:37] how they might use this document to support instructional walkthroughs and support CLT meetings with teachers. A short video was created and shared with teachers at the beginning of this year outlining and explaining the resource in more detail.

[01:38:53] Part of our work to support literacy instruction this year was creating a scope and sequence broken down by quarter for each grade level. All scope and sequences follow the same format. You can see the visual of the five pillars at the top reminding and grounding us in evidence-based literacy practices.

[01:39:12] All grade levels will see the expected units of study along with pacing outlines for handwriting without tears. For kindergarten first and second grade teachers, they will also find approximate pacing for Hegarty and UFLY resources. For grades 3, 4, and 5, we have provided guidance on word study in the scope and sequence.

[01:39:32] All grade levels can also view the SOLs that support the respective literacy component. All documents are color-coded to support teachers and house all links necessary to access the required resources. In addition to an updated scope and sequence, all streamlined guidance documents have been reformatted for the 23-24 school year. While color, literacy component, and instructional minutes may vary between grade levels, all grade levels have a common format. We have outlined the title of the unit per quarter, listed the LCPS provided resources, a document

[01:40:08] with SOL alignment by lesson, and identified which pillar or pillars are being developed during each literacy block component. Additionally, access to all quarters is available in one document on the screen you can see what the streamline guidance landing page looks like for two grade levels for this year all reading and writing units of study have been reformatted to include a more explicit lesson structure following and I do we do you do format each lesson has been condensed to one page that

[01:40:44] provides a specific literacy skill based objective connected SOLs lesson content in an explicit structure and an assessment teachers still have their units of study manuals should they need additional information. For teachers in grades kindergarten, first and second, we have completely rewritten and provided guidance to any lesson that references or utilizes the 3Qing system.

[01:41:08] We refer to this as the streamlined guidance and it is used as core instruction throughout this school year. On the screen you'll see an overview of all materials provided to all elementary schools to support core instruction for literacy.

[01:41:28] And here's a quick overview of the instructional materials available to schools to support their specialized reading instruction. Additionally, here we have our updated instructional match guide that is shared with all teachers. On this guide, teachers notice additional interventions that are available to support students.

[01:41:45] They also notice a shift towards targeting a specific area of literacy rather than targeting a specific disability. Lastly, this guide also includes considerations to support each individual learner style. Finally, we'd like to conclude our time together by sharing some updates from the VDOE.

[01:42:10] The first draft of the Grades 4-5 Core Instructional Program Guide is anticipated to be shared in November 2023 with anticipated Virginia Board of Education approval in December 2023. We have been told to anticipate the release of the K-8 Supplemental and Intervention Program Guide in early 2024.

[01:42:30] Another part of the Virginia Literacy Act outlines professional learning for reading specialists, classroom teachers, and administrators. The VDOE began their professional development by offering mandatory sessions for all reading specialists called reading institutes. Each division was assigned seats at specific locations.

[01:42:47] Initially, LCPS was only provided with 60 seats, which was not enough to accommodate our 120 plus reading specialists. We advocated for additional seats, knowing that all LCPS reading specialists needed access to this learning. While division leadership was unable to attend, we are pleased to share that we were able to provide seats for all LCPS reading specialists. Some reading specialists attended the Fairfax Reading Institute on August 24th and 25th, while others attended the Richmond Reading Institute on August 29th and 30th. Regardless of the attended Reading Institute, all reading specialists shared at the September meeting very positive feedback around the learning that was shared. Part of the Reading Institute shared with reading specialists that

[01:43:26] additional information regarding Division Y in literacy plans would be forthcoming this fall. We will share more as soon as we receive additional information from the VDOE. A final component of the Virginia Literacy Act is implementation of student reading plans for all students in need.

[01:43:41] While this requirement does not go into full effect until fall of 2024, LCPS is currently meeting a majority of those requirements through our intervention module plans and individualized education plans. We anticipate a smooth transition to the state-mandated reading plans next year.

[01:44:02] With significant shifts to literacy instruction also come significant shifts with how we assess literacy skills. Beginning in the fall of 2024, we will no longer have the PALS literacy screener. This assessment will be replaced by the VALS, which stands for the Virginia Language and Literacy Screening System.

[01:44:21] Like PALS, this literacy screener has been created and will be monitored by the University of Virginia. This new and comprehensive literacy screener will include updated subtests to support both aspects of literacy instruction. On the screen, you can see a visual that represents literacy instruction.

[01:44:40] On the left, you can see a bubble that is titled Decoding Encoding. This piece of the visual most closely aligns with the word recognition strand of the reading rope visual shared earlier. On the right, you can see a bubble with language comprehension which directly connects to the blue strand of the reading rope visual.

[01:44:59] You can see from the visual that the current PALS assessment only assesses decoding and coding skills. The updated VAL screener will provide subtests that connect with code-based instruction or word recognition skills in addition to subtests that assess language comprehension skills.

[01:45:15] LCPS is proud and excited to be one of 17 divisions across the state that is participating in the soft launch of the VAL screener. The fall screening window for all first and second grade classrooms has finished, and the kindergarten screening window opens today.

[01:45:33] Being part of this soft launch allows LCPS insight into the updated screening subtests, but more importantly, it provides our teachers with an opportunity to provide feedback regarding the screener directly to the Virginia Literacy Partnership Office, who is responsible for designing the screener.

[01:45:51] In the fall of 2024, this screener will also be implemented for third grade students. We are still learning what the data collected from VALS will tell us and how it might be used. We continue to receive frequent updates from the Virginia Literacy Partnership Office.

[01:46:09] What we do know is that at the conclusion of the assessment, all students will receive an overall band of risk. Students receive either some risk, moderate risk, or high risk. Some risk is defined as students at low risk for developing reading difficulty and supplemental instruction is not recommended.

[01:46:29] Moderate risk is defined as students requiring additional explicit instruction and supplemental instruction is highly recommended based on the student's need. High risk is defined as most likely to develop ongoing reading difficulties and students who are high risk qualify and must receive support in alignment with the Early Intervention Reading Initiative or EIRI. In LCPS guidance has been provided in conjunction with and support of the multi-tiered systems of support MTSS office that any student who is identified as moderate or high risk will be screened in Fastbridge to determine what supplemental instruction and/or

[01:47:08] intervention would be most appropriate and match their specific skill area of need. We are excited about our accomplishments so far and while we have a lot of work ahead of us, we're committed to continued collaboration to support every student and every teacher.

[01:47:29] We appreciate your time today. Thank you. Board members, any questions? Thank you. I was wondering if you could provide information on maybe a projected timeline for how long UFLY will be implemented before it yields higher results than the previous systems with the pacing guides and pillars it's a really good question I know that with looking at some of the subtests in the VALS assessment that we just talked about a lot of those subtests do relate to some

[01:48:07] of the progress monitoring that happens with UFLY so we'll be able to do some direct connections as the year progresses as we are able to look at the data and then be able to look at students longitudinally so when we know that students like for example our kindergarten students will be able to follow them for kindergarten first and second to see how they perform with you fly thank you miss thank you mr. vice chair have you been able to solicit any feedback from teachers yet about their opinions on you fly and how

[01:48:42] they're able to implement it in the classroom I'll also open it up to Heather and Margaret to see if you guys have heard any feedback I have heard from teachers that they really appreciate the way that the lessons are laid out and and the supporting documents from the University of Florida.

[01:49:02] If you've ever been on their website and you just click on their toolbox, everything is ready for teachers. And I think that they really appreciate that they're able, like all the advanced preparation that in previous years had to take place, that it's there for them and it's very clear, but that it still also allows them to have a little bit of teacher choice in what they can use and how they go about the lesson.

[01:49:25] So I've heard a lot of positive feedback from that perspective. I will say from the special ed office, we've also heard very positive feedback from general education and special education teachers in that their students are already starting to integrate some of these skills. They're already starting to tap and give sounds and already applying that phonics skill.

[01:49:44] So we are seeing really good results so far. Great news. Thank you. Before I go to Ms. Reiser, I think that was a question I was going to ask, but I'll just piggyback on that. could we set up i think we always talk about having a bi-directional communication i think so it's good to they're providing some sort of a feedback to uh to the division but is there a way to set up some formal feedback like having a structured way to for the teachers to provide feedback so then we can analyze and then again it just more it's more qualitative data for you to

[01:50:19] then um make adjustments or make improvements to that so i think that's a great question but we can formalize that process too. Ms. Reeser, do you have any questions for the panel? No, thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you.

[01:50:35] Well, thank you, Mrs. Slevin, Ms. Osbury, Ms. Crawford, and Ms. Neal for presenting tonight. Thank you. Given the time Dr. Spence, if it's not to trouble, we can move the 403 to the information item session.

[01:50:54] With that, board member, we'll take a recess and join back at 6.30 this evening. Thank you.

[02:20:02] Good evening, Lauren.

[02:23:16] The board is coming out of recess. I've been notified that Ms. 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.

[02:23:34] Thank you. I'm home. I'm alone. I'm asking for remote participation due to a disability and ongoing medical condition as confirmed by Loudoun County Public Schools Human Resources Department and approved and it's an approved accommodation by Virginia law and federal law. Is anyone present with you at this location? If so, please state their names. No, I'm home and I'm alone. I'll enter in a motion for Ms. Corbo on medical matter. So moved. Is there a second? The motion would not

[02:24:11] pass for the lack of second. Ms. Corbo, would you like to use your personal exemption? No, not at this time. Thank you. Thank you. With that, we'll move to the item 7, Pledge of Allegiance. Tonight we're joined by our pledge leaders, Fadi Melk and Neil Chetan. Fadi and Neil are juniors at Rockridge High School and are founders of an exciting project called Phoenix Motorsports. The Phoenix Motorsports team is a diverse group of young minds taking on the challenge of designing,

[02:24:47] building and testing small open wheel formula style race car called an FSAE car. We'll ask you more about that. FSAE is an international collegiate program that hosts yearly competitions where schools come to test their vehicles according to the FSAE technical guidance, technical regulations. Rockridge High School is the first high school in the world to participate in this program. Projects like this only come to fruition thanks to wonderful teachers like Mr. Johnson, enabling and encouraging students to have passions for learning.

[02:25:23] And we also have, I'll just read through with our national anthem guests as well. We are joined here by Arcola Elementary School Chorus Group. The Arcola Elementary School Chorus is an award-winning two-part vocal ensemble comprised of singers in fourth and fifth grades.

[02:25:41] The school performed unison, two-part and three-part vocal literature from various styles, genres, eras, and languages, all for treble voices. The school has, I guess, school has annual winter and spring concert at Arcolla Elementary, and also travel to local community events performing at the National Christmas Tree, National Zoo Lights, Veterans Honor Flights, Washington Visits Basketball Game, Nationals Baseball Game, George Mason University Basketball Game, Gum Springs Library, Stone Springs Hospital, John Champ High School basketball and football games.

[02:26:19] The Arco Elementary School Chorus is voluntary and open to all singers in fourth and fifth grades with a love of singing and learning to sing in a choral ensemble. The chorus this year has 170 singers under the direction of Mrs. Jennifer O'Reilly and Mr. Michael Williams.

[02:26:37] The school tries to instill a love of singing and to foster the talents they're given to make beautiful music together and love to see you at any of their performances. So we'll begin with the pledge leaders and follow up at the national anthem.

[02:26:54] So please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[02:27:59] Thank you.

[02:29:04] Move to item number 8, 801, one LCPS spotlight, Eagle Ridge Middle School, specialized instruction. Good evening.

[02:29:28] Hi, my name is Scott Phillips, and I'm the principal at Eagle Ridge Middle School. This is my 11th year as the principal at Eagle Ridge, and I've brought a team of folks with me tonight, and I'd like to introduce them to you at this time. First, I have Mr. Dave Barlock.

[02:29:44] Mr. Barlock is my assistant principal and has been for eight years now. He's in charge of our special education program. Also with him is Ms. Tracy Wilson. Mrs. Wilson is our special education department chair. Also with us tonight, Ms. Robin Wilson.

[02:29:59] Robin has been with us as a special education teacher. I'm Robin Parker, sorry. We also have three students with us tonight. Our students are Addison Helen. Can you wave? Aroosh John and Naeem Rasul Johnson.

[02:30:16] We're going to give each of them a chance to talk through what some of our programs are like. This is my 16th year as a middle school principal, and this is an issue as long as time. As long as I've been in administration, we've been working on what to do with struggling readers when they get to middle school.

[02:30:37] And so what we know is that most IEPs are written for kids in elementary school or in middle school because they struggle to read. And so we're going to talk about what some of the things are that we have done and some of the new approaches we have, as well as some of the structures that we've built in our middle school tonight. I'm going to turn it over at this time then to Mr. Barlach and Ms. Wilson.

[02:31:04] Tonight we're going to talk about the strategic plan for excellence under the strategy of multi-tiered system of supports. Next. Can we just push this?

[02:31:24] Next.

[02:31:34] Thank you. A few years back through the Office of Special Education, we got the Scarborough Reading Rope, and basically what this is is it's eight different components, that are intertwined, but within those eight components separately, they all work individually.

[02:32:11] And what I was going to say is that it's a really unique visual, and it really puts a face on what the eight significant skill sets that we need to read. It's not just reading to read the words or understand the vocabulary, but it is those eight components that we can break apart, and we work individually with our students based on their learning needs and reading. It's quite fascinating.

[02:32:33] So it's a unique visual that we have. And we also, with our students too, we kind of do a visual in class about, especially the students that are reluctant readers that don't want to participate when they're in middle school, you know, secondary education and they're still learning to read.

[02:32:49] We actually have pipe cleaners and we kind of discuss, we almost brought them tonight actually, we almost brought them tonight. And just talk about all the, you know, the really multifaceted components that we have and the skills that we work on this is just a little snapshot of the division-wide tools that we use and i was going to bring robin up she is also a specialized reading teacher and we're going to talk a little bit about what we use this is not all of the tools that we use this is just a snapshot so through assessments in these programs we're able to

[02:33:27] determine what part of that strand a student might be missing one of those eight components that they need extra work in and that we're able to focus on that and bring that out so that they can become the skilled readers that they need to be. And I'll talk about some other things in a minute, but that's all for that.

[02:33:46] Can I contribute to that? Yeah, absolutely. I'd like to contribute, too, that this is, for the board, this has grown, especially over the past, I'd say the past three to five years where we used to have one or two programs. Now we have a multifaceted approach where it really does meet kids where they are and as Robin said, if there is an issue in one area or students at a different level than another, we can really individualize instruction for them. That's why you see so many different programs.

[02:34:16] I was just going to tag on the very end that because of the division, they really provide coaching and leadership to us so we kind of share our data with them openly and they come up with our, they research it for us and they give us the instructional tools that we need to be successful.

[02:34:35] This has developed over the course of the last few years. We have an internal approach that we use where we target those, you know, through the multi-tier system of supports, the Tier 2 and Tier 3 students.

[02:34:52] They could be special education students, but they could also be general education students, depending on their needs. And then externally what we do is, through the county, there's been various like coaching, programs, things that they've helped us to develop externally as well on a continuous basis.

[02:35:23] Yeah, I was going to say the Office of Special Education especially, especially their division of reading and specialized reading has blossomed and grown and gives us the tools that we need based on data. So we have frequent data discussions, and we'll talk about the people at the end who's really supported us along the way. Some of the things that we've done over the course of time, it begins with our master schedule every year.

[02:35:49] What we do is, and how we initially developed this was, through the master schedule, we created sections of the self-contained English and math. And what we started to do is give our students that self-contained English and math on a daily basis.

[02:36:06] From that, we developed, we created sections of reading, of reading strategies classes, which over the course of the years, we have really drilled down and really the need of the individual students. That's what we focused on.

[02:36:23] The last thing we do to give additional supports to those students are we do incorporate having their case manager in their resource class with them to give them those supports. We focus on the rope. I know that sounds silly, but we really always go back to the rope.

[02:36:41] And we really focus on those eight sub-skills in order to incorporate what is the best practice for reading for our students. Some kids need decoding, encoding. Some kids just need comprehension. Some kids need fluency plus comprehension. So we break it down by strand. So part of that slide and this one looks like every school should do that, right?

[02:37:05] And it looks like things that every school does. Within that, though, is understanding in a master schedule. We're looking at every single kid and hand-placing them in sections leveled to what they need and then hand-placing them with their case managers, making sure that even though we're on an A-Day and B-Day schedule that they get English and math every day if that's what their need is.

[02:37:28] So understand that within that, these people behind me are doing a lot of legwork to make sure that that student's schedule helps best set them up for success and then throughout the school year if there are adjustments that need to be made they're made um and robin and trace are going to talk about this in a second and this is how we have developed that and we actually started this before covid we started creating sections of the reading strategies we noticed the need was there in addition to those self-contained english classes that we offered and so back in 2019 is when we really started uh developing this and as the

[02:38:07] years progressed we have seen and really have added additional sections if you guys want to talk about that well i just want to say that robin just got back from amazing training thanks to the division and she's going to talk about which how she has been trained in i'm trained in orton gillingham through imse as well as trainings that we do here in london county public schools such such as fundamentals of literacy.

[02:38:31] I've had all of the reading trainings that are available. I've been able to incorporate those within my classroom, bring things directly from the training, directly to my class, and implement it. It's been phenomenal in how I've been able to grow in my reading strategies classes, where some of them used to be just decoding and encoding, and then we were able to add the comprehension and morphology and vocabulary as well.

[02:39:02] - Over the course of the years, We've had various supervisors. We do want to give some shout-outs here. Our current supervisor for special education is Holly Wiley. We work with Holly on a continuous basis.

[02:39:20] Honestly, every time we ask for something or for supports, she's always been there for us. Dr. Brocious was with us last year. She moved on to another school this year. She helped as our instructional facilitator.

[02:39:36] We now have Madison Berrizato, who's with us this year. I mean, honestly, we could give a shout-out to a lot of people through the course of the years through Office of Special Education that has helped support us. These are people that really have stepped up and helped us over the course of the last few years.

[02:39:54] Sorry, I want to make one shout-out. She's not here tonight, but she is a Special Education Dean at Parkview High School. Her name is Jackie Smetzer. She was instrumental when we were still kind of in the baby stages. She was our instructional SIF for reading. She helped get us started. So as we said, it's ongoing.

[02:40:16] We use, through the division, we provide instructional materials. They are continuously supplying us with materials and also professional development, as Robin said a few minutes ago. We utilize our multi-layers of support drives depending on the need of the student.

[02:40:35] And we have frequent communication and support from the Office of Special Education. We'd like to thank you all as well for, you know, giving us those resources. It's helped. So, you know, the most obvious results that you would see as school board members are SOL results.

[02:40:55] So we're going to focus on some of those here as they apply to Eagle Ridge. So you can see what the results are over the past few years, post-pandemic, pre-pandemic from all students, and then with students with disabilities. I have to tell you that when we hit 76% back in 2019, that was the highest average I'd ever had out of a special education subgroup.

[02:41:16] To be honest, three out of four kids who really struggle with reading, passing a one-time standardized state-level SOL test is a pretty great result. Part of our results in 21 and 22 include growth and recovery. Growth means that the student didn't quite pass the SOL, but they went from below basic to basic level.

[02:41:38] Recovery means that they had failed at SOL the previous time, but they passed at that time. So you can see there were a number of scores that were included in that, 21 and 22. And I want to mention those because those are huge. That's the work that the people here are doing that make a big difference in a kid, that makes a jump.

[02:41:54] What I like to say is we are not a one-year program. We are a three-year program. And so if a student is with us during those three years, I don't care if they, well, I do care if they don't pass as a sixth grader. But I do want to make sure that they're ready for high school, and that's our end game. The next one is a similar slide, but it gives kind of like our school results, which are on your left and gray, LCPS results overall, and then the state-level results.

[02:42:22] And what you can see is Dave and I are coaches. Like, we like to win, all right? He's won an AYFL championship. I won a middle school championship. We want to win. We want to be the best at what we do. But as I look at, like, with students with disabilities, like to me, that's not good enough.

[02:42:38] So we are always searching and looking for supports to help do better in this result. One thing I would mention is that these results don't reflect a student's growth in those programs we were talking about. They don't reflect a student's growth in MAP results, which are kind of our diagnostic measure that we do each year.

[02:43:00] And we've had great success, about 14 to 15 points difference between ourselves and the rest of the division in terms of our lowest kids and how much conditional growth they show on the map during the year. So that's something that's important to us as well. I'm going to turn it back over to the students and teachers at this time.

[02:43:21] Okay, so we wouldn't do what we do and we wouldn't strive to be the best without our students. So now is the time we want to pose a question to our students and have the board a chance to ask our students a couple of questions. So what Mrs. Parker and I wanted to ask is ask our students, how has this reading class, the different types of reading strategies classes, since they've been at Eagle Ridge, they're all eighth graders.

[02:43:43] How has it helped them? Who wants to go first? Naeem? Okay. How has it helped you, Naeem? Reading strategies has helped me from a lower reading to a higher reading grade, and it makes me feel stronger in all my classes.

[02:44:00] Addison? Oh, it's okay. Reading strategies has helped me be more confident in my reading and more confident in my reading in all my classes. Arush? Reading reading strata has helped me improve with reading like a lot of books and like complicated words Does the board have any questions for us?

[02:44:34] Thank you miss Phelps and you can see me appreciate that mrs. Phillips board members any questions I know I'll go this time to my right It's okay. Okay, and then mr. Morris. Thank you. Mr. Vice chair, so I'm curious because This is a this is a new approach and different from what you had experienced in elementary school and I'm wondering for the students this might be a hard question but if you could say what was the biggest difference between the way that you were trying to learn to read in elementary

[02:45:10] school and what's been working well for you in middle school and also thank you so much for coming and sharing your stories with us like how different is there something that's different or something that you like or what do you think there's a class we have a reading class in in middle school and we did it in like elementary school meaning a class as opposed to being pulled out for pull out instruction got it you go to a class so we do we try to I think that is the difference we try to make it anonymous so you

[02:45:50] know students that may or may not be may not embarrassed it's not the right word but I feel like in secondary there's a way we can kind of do sneaky learning where we make them anonymous like you're just going to a class nobody knows you know that kind of thing no we're very proud of our students mr morris thank you thank you it's it's very encouraging to hear the numbers generally speaking and each you know those increments reflect the entire student body so that's very impressive uh for the students i just wanted to know now that you feel a little more confident Is there a specific book that you've read recently that you don't think you would have

[02:46:30] read if you didn't have that confidence? A book that you like? The Outsiders. I know the book.

[02:46:48] It's called The Worst Middle School Years of My Life. I think it's a movie, but I think that's the name to the book. But I don't think I would be able to read it when I was in fifth grade from now. Well, thank you.

[02:47:10] Thank you for coming. You know, this evening we also got an update on the strategic plan 1.1, the goals and the data that's coming through. And we also discussed the early literacy, the new initiatives coming for elementary. And they also talked about the Scarborough rope as well in terms of from a reading perspective.

[02:47:31] So it's kind of good to see some synergies around that. But thank you for coming and sharing. I know this is the last year that's been sort of challenging. And I'm sure you guys are working hard. And I think it's a collectively as a division looking to get back to our pre, you know, getting back to, and ISOs don't really give you a good snapshot, but I think it's test score.

[02:47:51] I think right now there's a lot of emphasis on test scores. So I think, but I know we're all working together really hard to get the kids back to being able to, you know, achieve or do better on those tests too. So thank you again for coming tonight and really appreciate that.

[02:48:08] Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. My apologies. Ms. Polifko. That's okay, Mr. Mhedeby. I just wanted to thank you all for coming this evening and presenting. That's okay.

[02:48:24] I just wanted to thank you for presenting. But I also wanted to make mention of the fact that in my experience, over time, often children in elementary school proceed to middle school and then high school. And you find that parents, in some cases, will become dissatisfied with their child's case manager or however that may look when they're leaving elementary school.

[02:48:49] and they're so used to having that close contact with their elementary school teachers. And so I just wanted to commend you for bringing the case managers into the classroom and having them serve as the resource teachers for the students, because I think as close as you can get them to their students, when they go to middle school, they're not in close contact with them as they would be with their teachers in elementary school.

[02:49:10] So I just want to thank you for doing that, and I hope that over time you'll see a positive difference with that practice. Thank you. We'll move to item number nine, student school board representative comments.

[02:49:29] And we'll start with Ms. Alba Ventura-Martinez from Villanova-Robin High School. Hello, my name is Alba Johanna, and I attend this at Robin High School. Thank you to the school board who asked me to speak today, and thank you to the school board chair, Mr. Seraki.

[02:49:50] Robin was designed to help students who have already took graduation about 1.8% of the LCPS class of 2022 drop out. Of the students who drop out, the highest rate were students who identify as English learning about 60%, economically disadvantaged 6%, Hispanics 8%, and homilies 25%.

[02:50:15] Robbie opened three years ago. Almost 50 students graduated so far and 31 students expected to graduate this year. It is what I think LCPS needs to know about students like me. Mostly every student who comes to Robby is working like me.

[02:50:33] They're still learning English. They're sending money to their family that they support in their home country. And there are hard workers in school and out of the school at their job. Robby is unit because I always know who can help me.

[02:50:49] And I can always see them when I need to see them. Mr. Cavari helped with graduations. Ms. Lamb helped with medical stuff. Ms. Ayala helped with food. If we need something, we can go to that person.

[02:51:06] In a bigger school, we don't know who does what and how we can meet them. We get a lot of help from all social workers, Ms. Lam. Ms. Lam helps with dental work, ice glasses, health care, and connect us to community organizations that they help with big bills.

[02:51:26] When I had to go to the hospital, I got a 2,000 bill that they say I had to pay by deadline or the bill would be double. Ms. Lamb got a community organization to pay for the extra and most of the bill.

[02:51:43] I only had to pay $500, which I was able to pay. Ms. Lamb and Mr. Kabari helped with mental health, checking, and a small group for goals and struggles. And also, we know that we're not alone with our situation.

[02:52:01] I wish more students know about Robin. It's important that everyone who could benefit from Robin knows about Robin. I think students should learn about Robin from their teachers and counselors. LCPS should email students and guardians about Robin and put information about Robin on the LCPS on every high school website.

[02:52:26] All students should know about Robin, choose if they want to apply, and choose if they want to attend if they are accepted. I hope in the future, LCPS can provide more support to this new Robin High School. In the future, I hope Robin can have its own building and more students can go to Robin.

[02:52:47] I hope in a new building, Robin can have more classes or UMGEN, cafeteria, and CTE courses. I want to say thank you to all the people at my school because they are so nice with every student. and thank you to the LCPS School Board and LCPS administration for supporting all the Robby staff and students.

[02:53:12] I wish the best for the Robby staff to keep going strong and help all the kids who need help from them. It was my pleasure to be the student who represents Robby this year. I'm so grateful to the school board to give me the opportunity to come to speak about my school and what they need.

[02:53:31] Thank you. Thank you. I'll go to the next student school board representative, Ella Mahaffey, Riverside High School.

[02:53:53] Hello and good evening to the members of the school board. It's good to see all of you again. I'd like to thank my principal, Mr. Anderson, for giving me the opportunity to speak here tonight. My name is Ella Mahaffey, and I'm Riverside's student council president and student school board representative. Two weeks ago, I spoke about some of Riverside's upcoming events and accomplishments.

[02:54:12] Today I will briefly cover what we have already done this year so far and our future plans. One thing that Riverside, one thing that is new to Riverside that our student council has implemented this year is Wake Up Riverside, which is a morning news broadcast. This is student-led and it serves as the morning announcements for the day.

[02:54:30] Our student council has about four crews with three to four students in each. Each crew gets a week and makes the announcements for those five days. These crews have the opportunity to create a promo video and personalize their broadcast. With promo videos, students are able to promote athletics, the arts, clubs, and all aspects of Riverside with interviews, game recaps, and interest videos.

[02:54:52] Wake Up Riverside is a great addition to our school. Student council and class officers are also now in full swing for homecoming, as we are exactly 11 days away. Our theme for this year is Welcome to the Wild Side. Each grade is working hard to complete the mural, the float for our parade, designing our rock, hallway decorations, and much more.

[02:55:13] The student council is working to finalize the pep rally, creating decorations for the dance and promoting homecoming. We are also doing our first tailgate before the homecoming football game. We will have moon bounces, games, live music and tons of food trucks. We are all looking forward to this.

[02:55:28] During our pep rally this year, we are actually having our dance team and our cheer squad perform. This is something Riverside students look forward to as well. As for fall sports, our volleyball team, cheerleading team, cause crunchy, field hockey, golf and football are all doing extremely well.

[02:55:44] In cross-country, Hannah Floyd broke the 5K event school record. Our volleyball team is currently undefeated at 18-0. Our cheer team has competed in two competitions, coming in second place, and is getting ready for districts. And our golf team just competed in the state semifinals.

[02:56:01] All things to be proud of here. Riverside is off to a great start this fall, and we look forward to seeing what else we can accomplish this year. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go to Lily McBridge, Woodgrove High School.

[02:56:21] Good evening. My name is Lily McBride, and I'm a senior at Woodgrove High School. I'm currently Woodgrove's Student Council Vice President. I had the great opportunity to speak at the school board meeting two weeks ago and discuss Woodgrove's many supportive initiatives for its students. Once again, I would like to thank my SCA advisors, Mrs. Valasek and Mrs. DePoi, and my principal, Dr. Schiff, for supporting me in being my school's representative.

[02:56:45] Already, we've had some amazing achievements this year from Woodgrove's student community. Our golf team won regional playoffs, qualifying them to compete at the Class 4 state championships, which were earlier today. Our marching band competed in a Virginia Board and Directors Association tournament and won first place in their section, won Best Guard, Best Visual, Best Music, and Best General Effect.

[02:57:09] Seventeen Woodgrove students have made all-county chorus, and our volleyball team has a winning streak with five consecutive games. We can't wait to see what Woodgrove students continue to do this year. This Saturday, Woodgrove is having their 13th annual homecoming with the theme Dancing Through the Seasons.

[02:57:27] Each grade is given a season and they create a photo op based on it. For example, seniors are creating a fall festival with hay bales and a scarecrow. Sophomores are making a spring citrus tree in full bloom. At the end of the night, these displays are judged by teachers and announced at the pep rally the following Friday.

[02:57:46] After the dance, we have our spirit week culminating in our homecoming football game, where we celebrate the prestigious homecoming court and royalty. At the end of the month, in the spirit of Halloween, we have a school-wide trick-or-treating event that takes place during homeroom. We have a department costume contest for teachers, and kids can dress up and receive snacks, toys, and even gift cards.

[02:58:08] October is a packed month, and it's one of our favorite times of the year. While my school and many others in the county excel at spirited events and helping their students, I believe there are ways we can improve. One of the ways we can build on our community is through support from the district.

[02:58:25] I believe the county can help fund initiatives that promote diversity and inclusivity throughout the schools. We must continuously ensure that students are being heard, supported, and guided during their time in high school and to their post-secondary education and other plans.

[02:58:40] It's important to hear what issues are occurring in the community and to work hard to see how they can be fixed. Woodgrove's school-wide theme for the year is Unleash Your Potential. This phrase should always be practiced and preached to the students, teachers, schools, and Loudoun County in general.

[02:58:57] It's vital that the community hears those three golden words because we can only excel through that support and many encouraging reminders. As leaders and individuals in positions of influence, we should always be asking ourselves, how can I help others unleash their potential?

[02:59:15] Though we're only a month into the school year, time is flying by as a senior, and I'm sure the end of this year will be here before I know it. In this short amount of time, I want to take advantage of every moment and opportunity and support my fellow peers and classmates. Woodgrove's resources, clubs, and organizations allow me to do this.

[02:59:32] But with your support and influence, the county can help us carry through this mission. listen to students when they ask for help, create initiatives when needed, and lend a helping hand. While we can't solve every issue facing our community right now, we can start by just listening and helping.

[02:59:50] How can we help others reach their potential? Thank you for your time. Thank you to all three of you. I mean, thank you for being here, and all three of you make not only us, but the whole LCPS proud, so thank you.

[03:00:09] We move to the next item on the agenda. State's Advisory Committee update, MSAC update. Ms. Kunkel. Good evening. My name is Erin Kunkel, and I have the honor of being the chair for the Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee

[03:00:46] for the 2023-2024 school year. This evening, I would like to share a recap of MSAC in the 2022-2023 school year and share the vision and goals for the current school year. First, I'd like to start by reading the MSAC mission statement. The Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee is dedicated to partnering with Loudoun County Public Schools, parents, and the community to acknowledge and promote the needs of minority students. MSAC is also dedicated to building a school system that is culturally and socially competent and positioned to provide fair and equitable learning experiences for all students. I want to emphasize that while

[03:01:24] MSAC's focus is the fair and equitable treatment and learning experiences of minority and minoritized students in their family, MSAC's advocacy is for all students. Our goal is to empower, inform, and advocate for all. When all students succeed, we succeed. Next slide please. This is the MSAC executive board. I am very fortunate to have a great team on the executive board. Each of us brings our own different viewpoints, perspectives, and strengths to all of our planning meetings. I'm also grateful for their support and encouragement as we

[03:02:00] execute this year's visions and focus. Next slide, please. This is our MSAC 2022-2023 school year recap of our general body meetings. MSAC continued on awareness and knowledge gaps.

[03:02:17] They provided information on resources, effective advocacy, and opportunities for LCPS students and families. LCPS policy review. MSAC submitted feedback and comments on a total of 41 policies and three guidance documentation focusing on clarity, the benefit of recommended changes, potential issues with these recommended changes, and recommendations tied to MSAC focus areas, and more.

[03:02:42] MSAC also produced its annual report covering the 2021 through 2023 school years, using the 1LCPS 2027 Strategic Plan for Excellence as its core framework. In it, we highlighted the need for periodic equity reassessments, policy changes to reduce the instances of hate speech and opportunities to improve equity oversight.

[03:03:05] It is available on the MSAC website. Next slide, please. Now I'd like to share a little bit with you about MSAC in the year 2023-2024. This year, MSAC's theme is stepping up for the community. MSAC plans to focus on these five areas.

[03:03:22] Advocacy, focusing on engaging parents and families on ways they can effectively advocate for their students and students' education. MSAC will also continue to advocate and learn new ways of advocating for students in LCPS. Collaboration, our goal is simple, to collaborate more, to bring more ideas, perspectives, and voices to our discussions and our table conversations.

[03:03:45] Policy and regulations, MSAC will continue its work and its policy feedback and commentary, and we will also continue to encourage families to offer their feedback and comments as well. Empowered Delegates. This year we plan to offer delegates coaching, event planning, and hosting in support when and wherever they need it.

[03:04:05] We're also encouraging delegates to share their experiences so other delegates can feel encouraged and find inspiration. Our goal, advocacy, is an action word. Programs and resources. MSAC will continue to share opportunities and resources with the community as part of our communication strategy.

[03:04:25] We will post and share timely updates on educational opportunities within LCPS and the community at large. We will also be creating an MSAC resource handbook. In this handbook, we will provide an extensive list of LCPS and community resources, community organizations, and educational resources, as well as suggestions on how to effectively advocate for your child at each grade level.

[03:04:50] Next slide please. This year, MSAC will focus on two areas. Our first focus area is racial slurs and hate speech. The rise of reported and often unreported racial slurs and hate speech incidents within LCPS is alarming and distressing.

[03:05:07] This type of language inflicts harm and trauma that affects a person mentally and emotionally and impacts students' studies and ability to feel safe in their learning environment. LCPS has an opportunity to build a culture and a community that says, unequivocally, this language does not and will not belong here.

[03:05:31] Next, we will focus on our second focus area is going to be equity, access and advocacy. We believe that every parent and family member should feel empowered, knowledgeable, and engaged in their students' education.

[03:05:48] Too many families are unaware of the opportunities available to them within the division. Many families do not know who to speak with about their child's education, goals, or even if an issue or an incident occurs. We want to change that. Every parent should know and have access to points of contact, ease in finding information, and an understanding of the processes around these programs.

[03:06:12] We also believe that every parent should feel safe and encouraged and empowered to visit their child's school and ask questions about their child's learning environment and progress in class. We also want to focus on our general body meetings.

[03:06:30] I'm really excited about this. This year, our general body meetings look a little different. Our ultimate goal is to be solution-based. The first hour will be a focused area informational session with presentations from LCPS officials, LCPS programs, community leaders, and organizations.

[03:06:46] The second hour will be an MSAC working session where we will come to the table and we will have discussions and dig into these topics with driving questions as we work to provide relevant feedback and suggestions. Next, we are going to focus on partnership and collaboration.

[03:07:06] This year, we want to build relationships with everyone in the LCPS community, our schools, the school board, and Loudoun County community. We welcome everyone to the table as we work and advocate for a fair and equitable education for every child. Lastly, I want to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to meet with me, to hear MSAC's vision for this school year, and who has offered to partner with us in so many different ways.

[03:07:31] We appreciate your feedback and your suggestions. I'm very hopeful and excited about what's to come this year. There's a great opportunity for MSAC to further its reach in the community, its collaboration and partnerships, and above all, to make effective change. I look forward to working with you all this year. Thank you for your time.

[03:07:51] Thank you, Ms. Kunkel. And again, congratulations to you, Ms. Parker, Ms. Smith, Ms. Brooks, and Advice for the leadership of the MSAC. Board members, any questions? Mr. Morse? Ms. Kunkel, thank you again. I heard some of the repeating themes from our meeting, but I did want to ask that when you complete your handbook, if we could possibly get that to staff, so that we could get that put on the LCPS website as well.

[03:08:18] Because I think that would be valuable for the minority students and for the rest of the students, for the families, so that they understand what opportunities are out there. Yes, we can definitely do that. We appreciate all the work you're doing to get to that point, but thank you. Thank you.

[03:08:35] Ms. Reeser, do you have any comments or questions? I just wanted to thank Ms. Kunkel for her presentation and her vision and her time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Kinkill. I have one question. I mean, what kind of help are you looking from the board as you go to the journey? Maybe if you don't have an answer, but I think something I'm sure we all will be looking to help, as Mr. Morris talked about. Again, that's just an opportunity, but if there's anything else the board can help, please reach out. I know you've been reaching out to all of us.

[03:09:08] Yes, I will definitely do that. Again, I appreciate all of your feedback and your comments. We are looking forward to working with you all. And again, the door is open. Please join us at the tables. I promise not to put you in the hot seat unless you have something to share. But we are looking forward to this year, and we are very hopeful for the things to come.

[03:09:24] Thank you. Thank you. With that, we'll move to item number 11, superintendent's report, Dr. Spence. Thank you, Vice Chairman Hadby and board members.

[03:09:42] It's my pleasure to be able to share this evening some good news from around our school division. Starting with a congratulations to the 13 LCPS high schools that are included on the 2023 AP Honor Roll. The AP Honor Roll recognizes schools based on three criteria involving their graduating class.

[03:10:00] College culture, which is based on the percent of the graduating class that took at least one AP exam. College credit, which is based on the percent of the graduating class that scored a three or higher on at least one AP exam. And college optimization, or the percent of a graduating class that took five or more AP exams during their high school career.

[03:10:17] That list of schools which are in this honor can be found on our LCPS website. LCPS was recently featured in two school rankings, Niche Best Schools rankings and Northern Virginia Magazine's ranking of the top 25 area schools. According to the Niche Best Schools ranking, LCPS is ranked fourth amongst 131 Virginia school divisions behind Falls Church City, Arlington County Public Schools, and York County Public Schools.

[03:10:42] In Northern Virginia, Magazine's ranking of the top 25 area high schools, 10 of those schools are from LCPS. student musicians from belmont ridge and seneca ridge middle schools will be featured performers at the association for middle level education's 50th anniversary conference which is being held at the gaylord national resort and convention center and national harbor in early november in addition to these live performances riverbend smarts mill and belmont ridge middle schools will help celebrate amle's 50th anniversary by participating in a podcast the voice of the

[03:11:18] middle school student the podcast which features students from these lcps schools will be released after october 19th on amle's website with that address noted on this slide and that podcast will be highlighted at the conference so congratulations to these students and their teachers on being selected for those events i do hope that those listening and here tonight will plan on attending one of our upcoming community listening sessions the first two sessions held at broad run and Independence High Schools had great attendance and participation and we want to thank those schools for hosting and all of the participants for their engagement. I look forward to future sessions and

[03:11:57] continued engagement with our LCPS community. The goal of these sessions is to provide our community with the opportunity to share their hopes for LCPS's future and to help LCPS continue to improve our connection with our family, staff, and community members. The next session is this Thursday night at Parkview High School.

[03:12:16] More information about these listening sessions can be found on our website, shown on this slide, and I look forward to seeing you at those sessions. Tuscarora High School will host its ninth annual Historically Black College and Universities Showcase on Tuesday, October the 17th.

[03:12:33] This event aims to educate students about historic colleges and universities and the great options they offer. Information about NCAA student-athlete programs, college test preparation services, community scholarships, and an on-site application review with college admission counselors will also be available.

[03:12:50] Angela Mitchell, president and CEO of Arm Consulting, will deliver this year's keynote address, and I hope you will plan to attend. LCPS is also supporting the Loudoun County Council PTA by hosting their parent resource fair, which will be held here tomorrow night.

[03:13:07] The event will feature six 20-minute breakout sessions to provide parents, guardians, and community members with information about math and reading strategies, managing teen stress, online student safety, using LCPS apps and services like ParentVue, the LinkConnect meal payment platform and the Lightspeed Parent Portal, and more.

[03:13:28] In addition, LCPS departments and partners will be on hand to provide information about the programs and services they offer and answer questions. Also, more than a dozen Loudoun County nonprofits will be in attendance, so we hope you'll be able to attend. I did enjoy being able to swing by the Loudon Education Foundation's Golf Classic last week.

[03:13:48] The event was a great success. It was held at the Creighton Farms Golf Course in Aldi, and it was a record-breaking day for the foundation, raising more than $100,000 in unrestricted funds. The money raised will support LEF programs, including Innovation and Education Grants, which support educators with funding for innovative learning experiences for their students, and also Fueled, which provides weekend meals to food-insecure LCPS students.

[03:14:14] Thank you, board members. That concludes my report. Thank you, Dr. Spence. We'll next move to public comments. Thank you for engaging with the school board through the public comment process. The school board welcomes comments from the Lowndes County residents and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system.

[03:14:39] Speakers must limit comments to the time allotted. Based on the number of speakers tonight and the agenda this evening, all speakers have been allotted two minutes each for public comments. Please be advised that the 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.

[03:15:01] 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 this 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

[03:15:36] from vulgarity, obscenities, profanity, or other like breaches of respect, nor may speakers target, criticize, or attack individual students during public comment. Speakers should communicate those concerns to their school principals 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. For 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

[03:16:14] by any meeting attendee may result in the chair directing staff to remove the attendee from the remaining 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 the public comment for safety reasons, or the public comment period ending for the evening. Copies of the materials for board members 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 the material. Under no circumstances may a speaker approach the dais. The public is reminded that

[03:16:54] access to the school board meeting is available through LCPS TV on Comcast channel 18 and Verizon Fires channel 43. The live stream of the meeting may be viewed on the website as well. We'll begin with the public comments folks in person. Our first public comments speaker is Ms. Brenda

[03:17:21] Bengston to be followed by Ms. Sandy Sullivan. Public libraries are defunded against the of taxpayers. A comedian parodies the censorship mobs who harass school boards. Book banners don't even read the books they protest. Yet students organize reading clubs. Banned books

[03:17:57] libraries are built. Independent bookstores and read-ins promote literacy. Vital learning opportunities and DEI are stifled when the freedom to discriminate usurps the freedom from discrimination. Frightening neighbors about what lives on the shelves of the public school denies young people the ability to grow intellectually, says Britt Bennett. Fear is about control. Replace fear with compassion. What's left is curiosity and better solutions. We will not

[03:18:37] cancel compassion, counseling, or SEL. Years ago, a parent challenged our assigned reading. We gave an alternate, yet the student felt out of place, while 300 others shared ideas or diverse understandings during a discussion. The parent got what they wanted, but did the student.

[03:19:01] Then versus now, that parent came directly to us to work out a solution, not to social media to gripe. A teen says, I read banned books because I want to learn about how voices get silenced in our society and why. Raj Haldar created this book is banned to show students that the freedom to read is being trampled, to contend with the dangers of censorship while allowing kids

[03:19:34] to also have fun. Let freedom read. Thank you. Ms. Sandy Sullivan to be followed by Ms. Corey Ronat. Good evening. I'm Sandy Sullivan, an elementary school teacher who currently serves members of the Loudoun Education Association as their president. LEA is pleased with the recommendation for an additional 2 percent salary increase for staff from the additional funds from the state. These salary increases will help retain your hard-working employees. I was especially

[03:20:11] pleased when comparing the current salary scale to the proposed scale that your employees on the top step will receive a 2 percent salary increase as opposed to a lump sum bonus. Over the years, your employees who have devoted their careers to our students and are on the top step of the scale have received very low increases, some in the form of bonuses.

[03:20:31] Recognizing the dedication of these employees is critical and the right thing to do. Your employees look forward to you voting for option one for the salary increase in order to provide a 2% salary increase. In terms of collective bargaining, LEA looks forward to the draft resolution of the Legislative and Policy Committee being in public session early next month.

[03:20:52] Through this process, LEA has worked to collaborate with school board members in order to develop a collective bargaining resolution that will best serve our employees and ultimately our students. This has been significantly limited due to discussions about the resolution being in closed session. There have been no discussions in open session since LEA presented our collective bargaining resolution in June.

[03:21:14] Ongoing discussions throughout this process would have allowed a better understanding of what LCPS and LEA believes will serve our school system best as well as allow transparency to the public. As the resolution moves through committee to the full school board, I remind you that the Loudon Education Association looks forward to engaging with you in meaningful collective bargaining, which includes educator working conditions, our students' learning conditions.

[03:21:40] Thank you. Corey Burnett to be followed by Kyle Nathanson. Good evening. My name is Corey Burnett, and I'm an English learner teacher at Broad Run High School. Towards the end of last school year, you school board members were told not to discuss collective bargaining with anyone, including amongst yourselves.

[03:22:03] You have followed that directive to your detriment and that of your constituents. Your constituents have the right to free speech and the right to petition our elected representatives about critical policy matters that affect our work lives. There is nothing shady about constituents meeting with their elected officials.

[03:22:20] To the contrary, you should want and be proud to meet with your constituents to discuss policies that affect them. And by the way, you school board members also have the right to free speech and should no longer feel like talking about collective bargaining is breaking some rule. LEA was told that creating the collective bargaining resolution would be a collaborative endeavor, that LEA representatives would work alongside the legislative and policy committee members to draft a resolution that would be fair and transparent.

[03:22:49] The exact opposite has happened. We have been left in the dark because you were lied to by someone that you trusted. Let's start working together right now. Let's also get to the bottom of why LEA representatives are no longer allowed to meet with members at their places of work.

[03:23:06] For as long as anyone can remember, LEA has always been allowed to meet with members wherever they are, in schools, at trainings, and at in-services. Suddenly, last year, Dr. Smith decided we could no longer do that, but never gave a reason why. We have been waiting almost a year and still have never been given a reason why and have never had a proper discussion about this.

[03:23:27] Who's in charge here? You are. LCPS administrators work for you. You have heard us at this very podium time and time again telling you that LEA is being barred from meeting with its members. Do something. Investigate.

[03:23:43] Keep asking questions until you get real answers. You have the power. LCPS will never outperform its educators. Thank you. Kyle Nathanson, to be followed by Christina Ramirez. Thank you for your time.

[03:24:08] I have lived in LCPS my entire life. I grew up as a student here. I became a teacher here. And during my time, I have learned that we are supported on the backbone of four goals. An empowered student, exemplary staff, enriched division, and an engaged community.

[03:24:25] And nothing exemplifies that further than LEA's presence here. Collective bargaining is an essential step to promote our exemplary staff, To provide for them and make their voices, our voices heard. And in order to do that, we need to be involved in the processes.

[03:24:42] We need to have no backroom deals. We as teachers need to be involved in something that involves us. That at the end of the day involves everyone here. If we want that empowered staff, we want that engaged community, we want that enriched vision, we want these things.

[03:24:57] And in order to get that, we need collective bargaining. And we need to be involved in that process in order to make sure it is the best it can be. LCPS is one of the best school boards, sorry, schools in the nation. We've established that. Our superintendent has established that.

[03:25:15] And if we intend to keep it that way, we need collective bargaining. We need an open vote. Thank you. Thank you. Christina Ramirez to be followed by Hugo Brunet. Hugo Brunet to be followed by Abby Blatt.

[03:25:40] Good evening. My name is Hugo Brunet and I'm a bus driver for Loudoun County Public Schools. Transportation deserves collective bargaining as much as any group of employees. such as our wonderful teachers. We reached over 45% of signatures, but your rule of having to reach 50% wasn't obtained in time.

[03:26:03] Now, according to another ridiculous rule, we have to start all over again after a six months expiration deadline. We got over 45% of signatures in favor of collective bargaining, while LCPS was doing everything in their power to block our union, LEA, from reaching all of our transportation employees.

[03:26:22] For example, LEA, for example, LEA was denied entry to our last two in-service meetings when in the past a table was always provided for LEA to talk to its members and all employees. We bus drivers are a very particular group of employees as we don't work in a building.

[03:26:41] Therefore, it is very rare when we can be reached as a whole group. It seems that LCPS was counting on it when refusing access to LEA. Like I said in my last public comment, what are they afraid of? All we want is to work hand-in-hand to make decisions that not only affect employees, but also students and the community.

[03:27:03] Their scare tactics worked, but I hope that our school board will recognize how unfair this is. Consider transportation to be included in collective bargaining. We all deserve a seat at the table. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:27:20] Abby Platt to be followed by John Platt. I am here to ask about the status of the Virginia Model Policies, which were released several months ago. Some districts have already adopted them, and some have said they will not. Where does LCPS stand?

[03:27:37] To recap, the model policies are from a 2020 law enacted by the Virginia legislature. Two years ago in June, the Pupil Services Committee of King, Beatty, and Mehedavy met and listened to Dr. Asia Jones, who stated that the model policies were a mandate from the state that must be enforced. Chair Sheridan joined the committee to say that she would place the item on the agenda for the next general meeting, regardless of the committee's actions.

[03:27:59] At the next June meeting, Superintendent Ziegler infamously assured the board that there were no sexual assaults in bathrooms, and then the item, known as Policy 8040, was moved on for action at the next August general meeting. There it was modified to state that LCPS would change restrooms and locker rooms and create single-user restrooms within five years.

[03:28:20] Policy 8040 was approved by a board vote of 7-2, with only Morse and Beatty opposed. This year, the new Virginia Model policies went into place with four main principles. One, schools shall respect all students. Two, parents have the right to make decisions with respect to their children.

[03:28:36] Three, schools shall serve the needs of all students. And four, schools shall partner with parents. Attorney General Meares released an advisory opinion stating these policies comply with state and federal law, and school districts are obligated to adopt their own consistent policies. An AG spokesperson further stated, parents can sue if a school board refuses to implement.

[03:28:56] In Virginia Beach, this is happening and a lawsuit has been filed. Again, I ask, what is the status in LCPS? By continuing to enforce outdated policy, you are in violation of current model policies. Moreover, you directed extensive bathroom reconstruction on the basis of this outdated policy.

[03:29:14] This is a complicated matter and it needs to be on the agenda. You are openly inviting LCPS litigation if you continue to avoid your responsibilities in this matter. Thank you. John Platt to be followed by Esther Johnson. Esther Johnson to be followed by Mithil Gandhi.

[03:29:45] Hi, how are you guys doing? I'm Esther Johnson. I am a teacher at Independence High School. I teach both physics and biology. I am a mother of an LCPS graduate and a LCPS senior, and I'm a resident of Leesburg.

[03:30:09] I wanted to talk to you guys. Sorry, I have to catch my breath. All right. I've had the privilege of serving on the curriculum committees for the science curriculum over the last few years. I've had the privilege of being able to learn what our county actually wants, what we want to do. We want to inspire and provide our students opportunities to have deeper learning education opportunities. How do we do that? Well, according to the county in our policy, we want our students to adopt five C's. We want our students to be creators.

[03:30:40] we want them to be contributors we want them to be critical thinkers we want them to be collaborators and we want them to be uh did I say communicators I think that's the one I forgot I get them confused sorry all right um here's the deal guys if we want to teach our students that we have to model it modeling is the best educational strategy we have why hasn't LEA been invited to collaborate just throwing that out there just throwing that out there for you guys because it's an important question. You guys know, I don't know if you remember in high school, the group project,

[03:31:16] the dreaded group project, the fact that you don't want to share a grade with five other people because there's going to be that one kid that wants to do everything, the one kid that doesn't want to do anything, and everyone else that gets stuck with the work. We are here begging for you to let us be part of the work. Let us collaborate. Let us be a part of it. Remember, student learning conditions are educator working conditions. LEA wants to represent the educators, all of them, and try to help make sure that we are working together to make sure that educator working

[03:31:51] conditions support student learning. Thank you. Mythal Gandhi to be followed by Suzanne Satterfield. Good evening. How are you? My name is Mythal Gandhi. It is nice to be up here and many of you only have 50 more days or so and you'll be watching this from the comfort of your devices as well instead of being on the dais. Today, I rise here because last night I had a chance to look at the 70-plus page presentation that happened during the business meeting, which I

[03:32:29] think is the most important part of what you all do, which is the statistics. And as I read through that last night, I saw something missing. And the person who caught it, Chairman Morris. I still call him chairman morse because last year um mr morse asked the office of the chief academic officer to have all of the map data available to him and what they continue to do is to give us the public just partial information on how people have risen but they haven't given us the

[03:33:05] actual achievement scores and mr morse in his first question said where's the achievement scores and they looked at him and for the last 18 months we've been trying to do the same exact thing and they keep just looking at you guys saying oh okay and there was a little bit of a laugh because I think Jeff's a much nicer guy than I am and that data just has never been presented to you all it's never been presented to the public and it's really unfortunate. That along with other things that have happened within the chief academic officer's purview have been really really

[03:33:41] disturbing the academy of medical sciences is coming up in two schools that's fantastic do you know how eighth graders apply to the program they just say i'm interested and then there's a lottery there's no application procedure there's no hey what'd you get in science hey why don't you write a paragraph about why you want to go into health care it's just a lottery friends things need to change we appreciate your service but we hope that things will change in that division take thank you Thank you.

[03:34:10] Suzanne Satterfield will be followed by Brandon Kerr. Our progressive school board members and candidates are notorious for saying LGBTQ students are the most marginalized and vulnerable.

[03:34:29] That's just rhetoric. It's actually the special needs students. I sat in court during the case against Scott Ziegler and listened to how he colluded with Principal Diane Mackey, Lisa Boland, and Robert Falcone to fire special ed teacher Erin Brooks.

[03:34:44] It was heart-wrenching to hear Erin testify that she asked LCPS for help concerning the behavior displayed by a nonverbal elementary student in her class. Aaron clearly cared about this student and was deeply concerned that he may have been sexually abused based on the behavior of grabbing her breasts, bottom, and genitalia multiple times. He also performed actions with his tongue of a sexual nature. She witnessed signs of neglect when his barefoot was exposed, showing a horrible fungus and extreme nail overgrowth.

[03:35:18] She asked Diane Mackey to call Child Protective Services, and she refused. This should concern every single parent at her school. It was alarming to watch the length of staff went to protect Scott Ziegler, not the victims, and not this child. Morrison shared and dodged questions by the prosecution claiming memory lapse and attorney-client privilege. Brenda showed up in court in solidarity for her buddy Ziegler wearing black fingernail polish. When Brenda asked on the stand if she felt badly for voting to fire Aaron, she said no. She's not running for office, but Harris,

[03:35:57] Erica, they voted to keep the results of the independent report of sexual assaults from the public. It's easy to see that. It's because it showed that Ziegler and his staff ignored 159 Title IX cases and they refused to fire him and gave him a raise. It's just words when they say they care about student safety and mental health when students have been abused and complaints ignored. All girls are unsafe with males in their bathrooms and their private spaces and sports.

[03:36:26] Thank you. Bandon Kerr to be followed by Brian Davison. Good evening. I am a Loudoun County resident and LCPS teacher. This is my ninth year teaching in the county and I'm here to talk about collective bargaining. There's not much that I can say that hasn't already been said by the people that came before me. Our goal is to bargain in good faith. We're not looking to like overturn the entire system and throw the county into chaos. We just want better working conditions

[03:37:00] for teachers. And it's really difficult to continue to come up here and say, we want to bargain in good faith. We want to work with LCPS to make sure that we have the best school system we can. When the school system continues to take steps like banning LEA from our buildings keeping us from meeting with our members to being sorry to holding strictly closed sessions not communicating with lea at all about the development of the collective bargaining resolution all we're looking for is transparency and with the important work that's going on now of developing a collective bargaining resolution that will outlast pretty much everyone on the

[03:37:39] school board at this point it is important that this is done right that this is a step that's able to establish trust between the school system and staff so i urge you to please consider the information i am that's being presented in the future about collective bargaining look through it critically make sure that is something that's going to be in the best interest of the students staff and everyone that has a stake in lcps thank you thank you brian davidson to be followed by

[03:38:09] jeffrey dunn good evening so if you see the sgp or the map report tonight on conditional growth The gentleman over here asked you two meetings ago to give it out in public and your FOIA officers lied and said it's not capable.

[03:38:32] They charge us for that. And where's the breakout by black students and how much they grow? Because we know they grow less than the national average here. That's why your enrollment is declining because this district is horrible. So I'm going to read excerpts of the report that you commissioned but you wouldn't release because basically they concluded you violated everything.

[03:38:51] So there are three main takeaways where LCBS should not have unduly delayed its investigation. you should have conducted a threat assessment and you took an overly narrow interpretation of title nine the title nine amendments passed in 2020 under devos gave victims extra rights and forced you to investigate as soon as there was a credible threat so contrary to all the democrats lying about that districts must offer an opportunity to make a title nine complaint and offer supportive measures quote council found no evidence whatsoever that these measures occurred the judge not lcps banned the rapist from coming back to the school because you were going to let him come back

[03:39:27] and harass the victim. On August 17th, you found out that the rapist was charged, but then you lied and said you had no idea, Brenda. Really? Do you lie for a living? Do you feel good about that? Apart from the victim's self-initiated notice to teachers, y'all didn't contact her in any way.

[03:39:47] Harris, that is your constituent. Can't you reach out and say, hey, how are you doing? LCPS did not discipline the rapist for the assault in any way. That was your counsel's conclusion. For having sex twice in the girl's bathroom, somebody that you claim to be male, you say, okay, no penalty, right?

[03:40:09] Is that because we give all LGBT students special rights, Erica? This is a joke. This is a joke. Read your report. We know why you voted against it, because it destroys your entire Democratic caucus. Thank you. Jeffrey Dunn, to be followed by Andre Weiskopf. Good evening. My name is Jeff Dunn.

[03:40:37] I am an LCPS teacher, LCPS parent, and proud member of the Loudoun Education Association. I stand before you today to thank the members of this board who have been working on a collective bargaining resolution for the 13,000-plus employees of Loudoun County Public Schools, and I particularly want to encourage those on the L&P committee to be as broad and comprehensive in scope on the resolution that you will present to the entire board.

[03:41:05] The LEA believes that no decisions about us should be made without us, yet more frequently than not, every decision made in this county is made without employee input. A strong comprehensive collective bargaining resolution can change that. A strong resolution will ensure that no decision about salary and compensation will be made without us.

[03:41:27] A strong resolution will ensure that teacher workloads, including clarification of teaching hours, prep time, and non-teaching responsibilities will not be made without us. A strong resolution will ensure that decisions about curriculum development, professional development, working conditions, work environment will not be made without us.

[03:41:50] A strong comprehensive collective bargaining resolution will symbolize this board's commitment to fairness, cooperation, and the well-being of our teachers and staff, and by extension, our students. A strong, comprehensive collective bargaining resolution will ensure that no decision about us will be made without us.

[03:42:09] Thank you. Thank you. Andrea Weisskopf will be a last in-person speaker before we move to virtual speakers. Andrea, not Andrea.

[03:42:26] A majority of LCPS educators support collective bargaining. Nevertheless, this school board and this administration has shut LEA representatives out of the collective bargaining resolution drafting process.

[03:42:42] Indeed, the fact that this board and administrator has prevented those who requested collective bargaining from being part of the process indicates just how much we need collective bargaining.

[03:42:58] The fact that this school board stated that they were forbidden to even speak about the process shows that you are not bargaining in good faith. The fact that you have to spend time debating the lexical semantics of occasionally and how much unpaid labor you can compel shows you are bargaining in bad faith.

[03:43:27] At the last school board meeting, one of the goals for the strategic plan was to increase voice and choice for students by offering more clubs. Who is going to run those clubs? Most club sponsors don't get stipends.

[03:43:48] Are you basing meeting your goals on unpaid labor? I resent having to take time away from my advocacy work to advocate for fair employment practices. My working conditions impact the students whom I teach, and since this board and superintendent refuse to renounce the harmful and hateful practices and policies of this Commonwealth governor, it is all the more important that I

[03:44:21] advocate for our LGBTQ students. Black Lives Matter. Thank you. We'll move to virtual speakers. Our first virtual speaker tonight is Scott Bakua. program due to LCPS unclear communications about its temporary status. However, since the budget

[03:44:55] was finalized and with $16 million in deficit, on April 25th, this board has voted to terminate the program. Due to the extraordinary circumstances of COVID-19, many negatively biased statistics were presented that night. But one statistic stood out to me, and that was hearing the families.

[03:45:13] The virtual distance elementary program was working. It's disheartening to see vulnerable students left behind despite a budget of $1.6 billion. After its abandonment, it left very strict criteria for receiving any support.

[03:45:29] This has become impossible for many families. It has left my family to seek private instruction. Bring back virtual distance elementary for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Chi Ban. I'm here to ask for the return of the virtual distance elementary program.

[03:45:53] Upon its closure, many families like my own were abandoned due to strict requirements for receiving other virtual options and were forced to find private instruction outside of LCPS to support their children's needs.

[03:46:11] Virtual distance learning elementary was a fair program that taught just like in-person school. It was a safe place. Free from bullying, we need to bring back Virtual Distance Learning Elementary for everyone. Thank you.

[03:46:28] Thank you. Tim, make a little talk. School Loudon Elementary was not continued for this year. The primary reason given was due to budget constraints. My daughter has had to deal with the aftermath of this, as well as several others that we have managed to make a community while attending Virtual Loudon Elementary.

[03:46:50] It has not gone well, to say the least. These children need the full classroom experience in a virtual setting. They will spend the full day interacting with their teachers and classmates. It is as close to normal as these kids can get.

[03:47:07] Several school board members acknowledge this fact. I can go on about the numerous benefits that it provides and the reasons why it works so well for the students. But my time is short, so I'll focus on what was wrong and how this badly needed program can be brought back.

[03:47:23] The price tag has been the biggest limitations to this program, according to the board. LCPS's own numbers were reviewed to see what could be done as time was running out to save the program last year. A new budget for the school was created that was less than a fifth of the cost LCPS was paying while still teaching the same number of students.

[03:47:43] This would have made the cost per student far less than in person. This budget was presented to the board, but at the time, the board's decision was that it was too late to consider continuing it, regardless of the reductions of costs found. So now it's October, and time to talk again.

[03:48:02] We need an open dialogue about bringing back Virtual Loudoun Elementary. Let's give these students the support they need. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mary Mecklendock. School-age students, I have seen the different paths to educational success.

[03:48:24] My high school sophomore is in person, loves learning, and is in honors. Our 7th grader is in honors and virtual learning secondary, and also loves learning. My 3rd grader is unable to attend in the building due to health issues.

[03:48:45] I am a parent in visiting all sides of county schools for different needs. In the need for medically complicated children, there is a severe lack in providing a safe educational environment.

[03:49:00] these children. Some of these young children will grow and learn to handle their medical situations better. But at such an early age, it is critical to embrace the technology that keeps them safe. Medically complex children have the right to attend a school that is safe.

[03:49:21] If virtual elementary is no longer an option, what is the option? Parents and students this year I can advise you, virtual Virginia, Baba Academy, and even private pay-for options are not equitable.

[03:49:40] If providing services in the middle of the building is not an option for these medical fragile children, what is the option? Our children deserve to be able to have an education. It is their basic right. Thank you.

[03:49:57] Thank you. And our last speaker, virtual, is Jenny Cho. Good morning. Good evening, school board members. I'm the founder of the petition Parents, Teachers, Speak Out, as to keep Virtual Loudoun Elementary going.

[03:50:18] I initiated this petition on October 5th, and I am humbled and encouraged by the support we have received so far. As of today, we have gathered at least 61 signatures, each one a statement, a testament to the importance of the cause we are advocating for.

[03:50:36] The virtual distant elementary program has proven to be a lifeline for many families who discontinued. This is not just about numbers on a budget sheet.

[03:50:52] It's about real families and real children who are being left behind. We believe that the education should be accessible to all, not just those who meet certain criteria. every child deserves an education that caters to their needs and helps them reach their full potential. So today I urge you all to join us in our cause. Let's bring back the virtual distant elementary program for everyone. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you. And that concludes our public

[03:51:23] comment section. We'll move to item number 13. First item on the agenda is Department of Business and financial services, FY24 budget supplemental resulting from final FY24 state adopted budget.

[03:51:40] Ms. Willoughby. So good evening. As shared last month, the governor signed the FY24 state budget that included funding and spending requirements for LCPS.

[03:52:03] At the last school board meeting, we indicated that we would be bringing an action forward to this meeting. So that's what we have before you tonight. Starting with the grant fund. So the funding that we've received, some will go into the grant fund and some will go into the school operating fund.

[03:52:19] The grant fund has allocated to at one time flexible funding in the amount of $13,644,240 to LCPS to support the governor's All-In-Virginia initiative. Earlier, or last month actually, the governor announced in collaboration with VDOE his All-In-Virginia plan to accelerate students' learning as we continue to catch up from the COVID-19 pandemic.

[03:52:45] the three areas of the plan are focused on attendance literacy and learning there will be a statewide chronic absenteeism task force in addition to our local efforts to address chronic absenteeism there will be a continued emphasis on implementing the virginia literacy act and the state is investing in an intensive statewide tutoring initiative to support divisions in accelerating student learning back to pre-pandemic levels once lcps's all in virginia spending plan is complete. It will be shared with the school board with October 24th being the

[03:53:19] earliest meeting. We originally had targeted October 24th but the more we dive into this we want to make sure that we have enough time to prepare a complete plan. The spending plan will then be sent to VDOE for approval. Once approved LCPS will begin receiving funds on a reoccurring semi-monthly basis through June 2024. At this time though I want to be clear that implementing the plan is tentatively targeted for January. And again, it's just the timeline of preparing a plan, presenting it to the school board, getting it approved by VDOE, and the fact that it's already

[03:53:55] October. Any remaining funds may be carried over to FY25. And so the increasing the appropriation to the grant fund by recognizing the additional state funding ensures LCPS has adequate budget the authority for FY24, so that's the grant fund piece.

[03:54:15] The school operating fund, the state budget included additional funding from the state of $12 million. The state is providing $9 million in funding for additional support positions by increasing the support cap to 24 per 1,000 students from the current ratio of 21 per 1,000 students.

[03:54:35] This initiative requires no additional expenditure, so the recommendation is to allocate these funds towards the pay increase. The final FY24 state budget also includes $3 million in funding to support a 2% pay increase effective January 1, 2024, on top of the 5% already in the state's budget, bringing the total to 7%.

[03:54:58] This initiative does require a local match. Currently, LCPS has provided an average 5.8% pay increase that requires an additional 1.2% minimum pay increase to receive the full state funding.

[03:55:14] The cost for an additional 1.2% is $7 million. Recognizing the teacher shortage we are experiencing, staff recommends providing the full 2% resulting in a district-wide pay increase average of 7.8% costing $12 million.

[03:55:31] Either scenario requires additional funding and staff recommends utilizing the additional revenue coming from the state via the support cap increase to offset the shortfall. And that's why there's a range presented there of the $7 million to $12 million.

[03:55:48] Next slide. So another way of looking at this, but I want to also start back in May when the Board of Supervisors appropriated an additional $13 million to LCPS to offset the state funding shortfall.

[03:56:04] The intent of the Board of Supervisors was that should any net subsequent unencumbered state revenues be allocated in the final state budget, that the county appropriation would be reduced by the same amount. While the state has appropriated $9 million in unencumbered funds via the support cap increase, staff recommends these funds be utilized to fill the gap resulting from the 2% pay increase enacted by the state.

[03:56:30] This slide shows the two options with both effective dates being January 1. Also, the salary scale options related to these two is also included in board docs.

[03:56:46] So at the top of this slide, we have the starting point with the 5.8% average pay increase that has already been awarded for this fiscal year. Option one on the left would provide another 2%, resulting in an average 7.8% pay increase.

[03:57:04] The cost for this is $12 million. This option is 0.8% above the state's minimum requirement of 7% to receive the additional state funding. This option is recommended to help recruit and retain teachers, but also other positions as well. Additionally, applying 2% further progresses our salary scales in this competitive market. On the right is option two. This option would provide a 1.2% pay increase to arrive at the state 7% minimum. The cost of implementation is $7 million. This option is what

[03:57:40] LCPS would be able to do if the intent of the county's initial appropriation is applied. This option does not apply the unencumbered funds from the support cap and instead returns the amount net the county's local share of the pay increase back to the county and this will be shown in detail on the following slides. I also though just want to mention that we also have related to the COLA increase we have the associated top of scale payments which are the one time one percent payment for employees that are on the top step of the scale. So just anticipating the

[03:58:17] question from those employees we are currently scheduled to pay out the one percent top of scale payment on November 3rd, and that's on the FY24 scales is currently adopted. These options, either option one or two, would not be effective until January 1, but recognizing then the top scale changes, and so the one-time bonus payment, there's basically, if it was option one, it'd be 1% of the 2% pay increase, or if it was option two, 1% of the 1.2% pay increase. So we fully

[03:58:52] recognize that this is something that would affect our employees on the top step we've targeted making the application of that change in February but just also put in terms of perspective the average payment is probably going to be about 20 to 25 dollars so again it's one percent of a two percent change so it's not a large dollar amount but in terms of maintaining what our practices that would occur in February. Okay, so now let's talk what this looks like in terms of

[03:59:30] the numbers. So for this option one, I want to first orient you to what's on this slide. We have the revenues on top by the categories and then the expenditures on bottom. The next column, we have the current FY24 adopted budget. Then I have the option one laid out with the change and then the resulting revised FY24 budget. So what we have displayed here with this option is we are recognizing the $12 million increase to the school operating fund by recognizing the full $12 million

[04:00:05] in state revenue. So you see that we would add $12 million to the current amount of revenue we have budgeted from the state. So both the $3 million in funding for the pay increase plus the $9 million in funding from the support increase, the support cap increase, you know, totaling $12 million is what's making up that dollar amount. When you move down to the expenditure line, you see for personnel we've added $12 million there. You may recall that the cost to apply, the 2% pay increase

[04:00:40] to eligible full-time employees effective January 1 is $12 million. So you see that we have the expense spelled out there along with the resulting overall increase to the budget. I want to just recap that option one applies the unencumbered nine million dollars from the support cap increase towards the pay raises option two the same scenario so again we recognize the 12 million

[04:01:17] dollars in state revenue once again the funding needed for this option of providing a 1.2 percent pay increase is seven million with three million from the state and four million coming from the county local match. It's important to note that the local match has never been a one-to-one. So that's why even though we're getting $3 million from the state, the match and to cover the difference would actually be $4 million from the county. The county in this instance and in funding in general provides additional necessary funding to support LCPS. So again, the $12 million of the

[04:01:57] state is $3 million for the pay increases and recognizing $9 million of unencumbered state funding. When you move down to the county transfer line, we have the reduction of $9 million related to the unencumbered state funding, which is switching between the sources. So again, the Board of Supervisors' intent was that if there was unencumbered net state funding that was allocated by the state, that we would reduce the county transfer and recognize the state, and that is what

[04:02:27] we are showing here. So we have the $9 million that is being reduced, but then we have to add back $4 million for the county's local match of the pay increase, and that's how we arrive at a net reduction of $5 million.

[04:02:53] Moving to the expense line for the personnel, we have the $7 million, which is the cost to provide the 1.2% pay increase. Again, this option is presented to mirror the intent of the Board of Supervisors' action when they appropriated the $13 million to address the state funding gap.

[04:03:15] Next slide, please. So, next steps. are that the approved school board budget supplemental will be transmitted to the county board of supervisors for their consideration and action. It will need to go through their finance committee and then ultimately through their board of supervisors regular meetings.

[04:03:35] After the board of supervisors takes action, the appropriate salary scale for option one or two would be inactive effective January 1, 2024. And again, those optional salary scales are posted in board docs. However, if the Board of Supervisors takes a different action other than what we've presented for option one or two, then we will return to the school board for further action.

[04:04:05] And I would be happy to take any questions. Thank you, Ms. Phillippe. We'll open up for questions from school board members, Mr. Morse and Ms. Alkadek. Thank you, Mr. Vice-Chair. So back in May, we were pretty desperate.

[04:04:21] We had a $13 million hole in our budget, and we thought that the state was not going to fill that. We were uncertain. And so we proposed a budget, and we gave it to the Board of Supervisors with that $13 million in it, and they made us whole. They gave us that $13 million. It wasn't a percentage. They didn't give us two-thirds of a pile of money. They gave us $13 million.

[04:04:43] At that time, when they gave it to us, my understanding, and I think most of the board members' understanding, was that should the funding come through from the state, that we would return that funding to the county government, that it was not ours, that they were giving us this to make us whole for the budget that we submitted.

[04:05:04] We submitted the budget with that $13 million in it, and we didn't submit a budget with $12 million on top of that $13 million. I'm a little concerned that this is somewhat of a bait and switch that we're doing with the county supervisors when they provided us that funding, and that made our budget whole, And now we're telling them we're going to renege on that agreement.

[04:05:31] We're going to keep the $13 million. We're going to give our employees an additional pay raise. And the county is not going to be able to balance that out with their employees or their salaries or anything else that they may be purchasing. Because we've decided that now we're going to keep this piece of the budget as well.

[04:05:51] I have a great deal of heartburn with that. I think that we absolutely need to get that 1.2% from the state. But I think we should be doing this with the county's acknowledgement or approval, the county government, because I believe that this is their funding and I believe that it should return to them.

[04:06:11] So I'd love to hear what other board members think about that. Ms. Oka Dugbe. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. my question is also i'm wondering if there were other conversations that have happened with the county since that money was transferred that would lead to a proposal that offers two options one of which doesn't seem to be in line with the agreement for when the money was transferred so if you can share that that would be helpful yes thank you for that question there have been multiple conversations

[04:06:47] with county staff regarding what we are presenting so they are fully aware that we are presenting option one as well as option two which does mirror what the the spirit of what the original appropriation was i think there's just a consideration of the state including this additional funding for this item and again just for the items that i've or for the reasons i've shared before recognizing you know we've been challenged and filling our positions and trying to position ourselves not just even for this year but also thinking about next year with our salary

[04:07:27] scales I never want to minimize the amount of money that we're asking for the difference here is is five million dollars but in the big picture scheme of things five million dollars is not a horribly large amount when we're talking about the fund balance that the county is looking at regarding their fy 23 which is where that 13 million was coming from so that but absolutely these are why both options are presented um you know we didn't want to just completely ignore what

[04:08:01] was um originally agreed upon because we absolutely do appreciate what the county had done um previously um so yes thank you and i and i appreciate that because i think it's important to to hear that the county is aware and open to the conversation about us keeping the full money that had been given to us when we thought nothing more was coming from the state. I appreciate Mr. Morse's comments as well, but I just wanted to understand that there have been conversations and obviously

[04:08:37] the Board of Supervisors needs to take action. So we're not presuming what that eventual vote would be but it sounds like there is at least enough support where there's a comfort with this coming forward to us for discussion. Thank you. Mr. Beatty. Thank you. So I think Ms. Willoughby said it really well five million bucks is not a terrible amount in the grand scheme of things so I'm in favor of kind of keeping with the original agreement we made with the board of supervisors in order to give that money back. Part of the other consideration is that the next item

[04:09:16] on this list of our action items is for transferring funding because things are getting more expensive. So I think saving that $5 million now is going to help us for all the other projects that we've got going, especially as we look at the CIP. We've got a high school coming online soon. We're rebuilding Parkview. There's a lot of expensive projects that are just going to get more and more expensive. So I think it's prudent to take that $5 million, give it back to the county, and then perhaps we have more flexibility when it comes up from all the other projects that we're doing

[04:09:52] throughout the county. And so we have some breathing room so we don't have to raise taxes, take out more bonds. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I think the other piece to this issue that we have here tonight is that we're not being asked to just take action on option one or two. We're also being asked to take action on this $13,644,240 grant fund for the all-in plan in Virginia. But we have not been presented with a plan that that is problematic for me as a board member who has to make a decision to essentially give you all a blank check which is what we're doing here if we don't

[04:10:30] have a plan for what that is going to look like and I understand that that plan is supposed to come forward at the next board meeting it doesn't make sense to me to say yes we're going to co-sign for this 13 million dollars but as a school system we have no we have no specific hard set plan in place right now about what that looks like. What is that tutoring going to look like? Who's going to be delivering the tutoring? Are they going to be qualified individuals? Is it going to be done online? Is it going to be done in person? What is this going to look like for these students?

[04:11:00] I talked earlier tonight about the SOL scores for our low proficient students in grades three, four, and five. I was in a webinar on Monday afternoon listening to Dr. Lisa Kuhn say those kids who are low proficient in grades three, four, five, they go to middle school, they go to high school they're not proficient so what are we doing as a school system to prepare lots of money comes into our school system and it's just to me it's unacceptable for us to not have a plan in place on how we are going to help these children so i would propose that we table this motion until at least the 24th or or as soon as you have a specific plan in place for us about what that all in

[04:11:40] virginia is going to look like you know what are the percentages going to be we have recommendation from the governor as far as, you know, 70% learning, 20% literacy, 10% attendance. That's a recommendation. That's not necessarily what we have to do as a school division. So I'm not comfortable taking action on this tonight without something in front of me that tells me what we're going to be doing with that money. Mr. Morris. I want to add one complicating factor. We're talking about $12 million on the 1st of January, correct? Yes. And that's in salary adjustments. So by doing

[04:12:19] that what we've effectively done is we've passed on to the board of supervisors a 24 million dollar bill annual bill that will be why would that not if we change salaries at 12 million dollars mid year if once you get into a full year starting july 1st that's going to be a 24 million dollar adjustment correct i understand that you're referencing the grant i thought you're combining those numbers roughly um correct any pay increase absolutely rolls to the following year okay so now we have we've put upon the board of supervisors a 24 million dollar adjustment annual adjustment

[04:12:54] starting next year only 12 million this year but that is something to consider because now it's not just you know year-end funds and and five million dollars here or there now we're talking about some even more significant issues that we're creating as we as we try to work through this relationship. We're working with county staff. I have no doubt about that, but I would not want to pursue a $12 million solution without the county staff indicating, whether it be directly or indirectly through the county administrator or through their board, that they

[04:13:29] would view this favorably. Because in my opinion, it's not our decision and it shouldn't be. We've made our decision. They accommodated our decision. We fully funded our budget and now we're looking for an adjustment in next year's budget of 24 million dollars so so I'm I tend to agree with with Miss Polifco that maybe we table this so that we have time to talk to county staff find out what their their determination is on on how they would want to proceed with this so that we could two

[04:14:07] boards working together I know it sounds kind of crazy but I think that that's probably the correct approach. Ms. Sheridan, can I let Ms. Dr. Spence answer? Yeah, go ahead. So just Mr. Morse, to that, I want to let you know, and of course, we're all new to this conversation, but I would not have brought that recommendation forward without having had that conversation with county staff and having had assurances that they were comfortable with me making that recommendation. I just want you to be aware of that. Ms. Sheridan? I appreciate your comments there, Dr. Spence, and the reassurance.

[04:14:46] My question just follows along with the tabling idea. Is there any concern with delaying this until October 24th? Recognizing that it also requires action through the county's finance committee and their board of supervisors, it just potentially delays us implementing after January.

[04:15:15] So from a pay increase perspective, rather than the first, it's not the first paycheck in January, but it was, we had targeted January 26th pay date for implementation. So that could be in jeopardy in terms of delaying, but it could always be retroactive.

[04:15:32] and in terms of the the grant piece um similarly in terms of already we were you know feeling the pressure that were we wouldn't see um any action or you know tangible actions from the plan until january it could also just further delay that as well mr reaser you have a question uh thank you mr vice chair so um i will not be supporting an option that negotiates against our staff uh the

[04:16:09] cost, the support cap increase that has been lifted in part was not something that we contemplated when we were passing our budget because it did not exist. It's something that's been part of our legislative program for the last four years. And our staff is fully entitled to the entire benefit of it. For the board members who were here when we passed our first budget, you might remember that we reduced the amount we were asking for from the board of supervisors from what the

[04:16:48] superintendent had proposed in terms of educator pay. And we came to regret that. In fact, Tara Randall's advice at that point was never negotiate against your own staff. She couldn't believe that we had done it. And I don't think that we should do that again. And I would never support doing that again. It's not our job to decide what the supervisors will or won't do.

[04:17:19] It's our job to decide the decision before us, which is what to do with additional money that was given, and in part for something very specific. With the teacher shortage, with everything that our educators have been through over the last three and a half years, that should be our number one priority, because that is the only thing that can expand educational excellence for our students. New schools, renovations on old schools won't matter if we don't have staff to teach

[04:17:54] our students. So I won't be supporting any motion that short changes our teachers or our staff. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Malifka? I'd like to go ahead and make a motion to table this action until at least October 24th or until we have a specific plan in place for the all-in Virginia. Second. Motion made by Ms. Polifco and seconded by Mr. Beatty. Any further comments,

[04:18:32] questions? Yes, Ms. Okedek. So if you don't mind, I wanted to, would we have specific details on October 24th with, to address the questions Ms. Polifco is asking? I doubt it. Like I said, our And some of the earlier presentations I had targeted October 24th as when we expected to bring a plan.

[04:19:06] And again, just the complexity of trying to pull all the information together as well as it's not even just a plan. It's also the application process is asking for very specific detail that may require us to do an RFP process to identify a vendor. That's going to take a good six weeks even if we fast track.

[04:19:25] So there's a lot of obstacles related to this. And so for the grant piece, just in all honesty, I don't expect that we would on the 24th. And so I am curious regarding hearing how the discussion is, if it's something that we could split regarding the appropriation for the grant perhaps being tabled.

[04:19:47] If there's school board consensus of wanting to see more information there and splitting the school operating fund appropriation. Those are two items that could be handled separately. Mr. Morse?

[04:20:03] I'm not adverse to splitting it because I do think that either at some point, either tonight or on the 24th, prior to execution of that $13.6 million, the board has to approve what it's being spent on.

[04:20:18] I mean, that's just our function. So whether we put together a plan or not, it's going to have to come back to the board for approval. So we do have the final authority on whether that plan is viable. Obviously, it would not go to the state until it comes through the board for approval.

[04:20:37] So that might come to play into your timeline. But I am somewhat surprised another board member is saying that we're playing against our employees when we have a 7% pay raise this year, and Fairfax County doesn't even have that.

[04:20:58] I think that we worked pretty hard to get that 7% pay raise into the budget leading up to this, and now we're talking about it would be 7% if we do the split here. But instead of 7.8%, adding that 1.2 onto there, I feel very good about how we've expressed to our employees their value.

[04:21:20] I think that I'm somewhat surprised that we're looking at a 7% and people are saying all the teachers are going to leave. I think our workforce knows that we value them, And I don't think that that is the one factor that's going to push someone off of wanting to be an LCPS employee.

[04:21:44] Back to the split of the motion, if that is the will of the maker of the motion and the second, I would support the divide the question and we could move forward from there. Ms. Willowko. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair.

[04:22:00] I'm okay with that. I think that that makes perfect sense. Ms. Willoughby, I'm just wondering why in the information item for tonight, or the action item for tonight, that it says that the all-in spending plan will be shared with the school board during its October 24th meeting. Was that not in your plan?

[04:22:19] As I mentioned, that was the original plan, and I perhaps omitted adding the words as I made the change to the slides, and I probably forgot to make the change in board docs where I added at the earliest. okay thank you so when are we when are we to expect a systematic plan could you give us some kind of an estimate of when we should expect a systematic plan for all in virginia we were prepared to bring an information item um it's not necessarily action but an information item

[04:22:58] regarding what staff's plan was going to be submitted to vdoe and now that we weren't able to or now that it's not looking like we were going to be able to meet the original october 24 I think it was the second meeting in November is what we had updated internally as our target to bring the information item to the school board. Thank you. I'm sorry to belabor the questions but just one more for you. So we know that there is funding from the state and nobody would argue

[04:23:33] that we want to take advantage of that for the benefit of our students and the high impact tutoring and other supports to address issues that we can use that additional funding for. So my question is, where's the decision point?

[04:23:50] It seems that applying for the grant and then the specifics of exactly what it's being spent on might be two different decision points, if you can talk us through that. Or is it, if we say yes to taking the grant money, are we letting go of all oversight for opportunity to weigh in on how we're spending it so grants are a different animal typically what we have in the budget in the grant fund is I think we have a 1 million dollar contingency that we all well that we always budget for

[04:24:29] recognizing grant opportunities you know appear throughout the year when those grant opportunities appear we don't bring all those to the school board because a budget supplemental is not required and that's really our trigger for bringing that to the school board because we have the contingency with this appropriation from the state this has already been allocated to LCPS what we are seeking is that though we don't have the authority to spend and what I mean by authority meaning our contingency is only a million this is

[04:25:05] going to be 13 million we can't go over budget in a fund when we spend so adding 13 million dollars of expenses to the grant fund that we don't have the budget authority for that's why we're seeking the supplemental from the county having said that this all in virginia one-time flexible funding is is is new it's not something i've seen in my eight years here with

[04:25:39] lcps even in terms of the application process it's it's a little different to me because we've already been allocated the funding. All the school divisions across the state have been allocated the funding, but until we can start receiving the cash flow, we have to submit what they're calling an application. Even in terms of the application, it's uncharted territory working with VDOE in this matter, the type of information that they're requesting. Quite frankly, I think VDOE is also

[04:26:14] trying to figure this out as well um which could also further delay because i'm not even sure even even if we were to have our plan ready by the 24th and we submit it i'm not sure how quickly things will turn around because as we are trying to get clarification from videoe we're not getting a lot of answers because again i think they're trying to figure it out as well you know this all in virginia was kind of quickly rolled out in terms of funding from you know from the the governor in the state and I think BDOE is trying to react school divisions are trying to react

[04:26:47] and so that's where we're at right now. Ms. Okadekbe? Maybe this is the final question is so this is the first time that I've seen such a big grant come through since my time on the board and my question is is the board normally involved in approving a grant application or is that part of the operations of running the school system so I'm just trying to understand where the board's action comes in I understand this is a very large expenditure we're all very interested in making

[04:27:25] sure that we're you know doing all of the right things but I'd like to just understand again where where is our action where's the line for this from my perspective the action is purely financial seeking the budget authority I am thinking of a similar situation and perhaps I could ask Ms. Richardson, to chime in, I'm thinking about our IDEA, Title I grant funds that we receive from the federal government.

[04:27:53] And I also am aware that there's an annual plan that's provided, but I'm not sure if that's an action or information.

[04:28:09] Thank you. Sorry about that. We were having some technical difficulties. Yes, the annual plan application for special education funds comes from Title VIB.

[04:28:28] It is a federally funded grant, and that does require to come before the board as an information item. You get the opportunity to review all aspects of the grant, to ask questions, and to provide feedback, and then it comes back to you as an action item.

[04:28:48] So, Ms. Willoughby, I think this is a good question, I guess, coming back to grant. So, this particular motion is simply, I guess, because we typically submit an application for grant or request grants. It's just simply to make sure that we start the process. And this is not about actually the spending of the grant fund yet.

[04:29:06] It's Ms. Polifco's talking, you know, again, because I think the board would like to know how, I guess, lessons learned. I mean, again, I don't want to go in the back, but during the COVID funds and so on and so forth, I think there's some, a lot of lessons learned from that.

[04:29:21] And so the question is, it's like, what is the clear plan of the grants to be used? So are there two different decisions the board has to make? One is to make sure that we request to start the process of requesting the fund. And second is to then how do we go about spending the fund?

[04:29:38] So I'm trying to break it down because one could be a financial technical question. One is about the expenditure of it. Maybe that will help the board and help me at least. So there is precedent, as Ms. Richardson has described, with the federal grant.

[04:29:55] And so I can't think of an example as it relates to a state grant. so i would leave it at the discretion of the school board if they would want to approve the spending plan dr spence i don't know if you have any thoughts or so yeah i do so my thought is it would be helpful if we could get the financial piece of this in place so that we have the authority to spend the money and then with the understanding that the plan that we moved to the

[04:30:35] DOE we could bring back to the board for approval and should bring that back to the board for approval it's not that hard to do um that said if if the board wants to split this and you know let us deal with the non-grant issue and then come back with a plan to the the challenge for us is how long it's going to take us to put a plan together because it is um it is complicated as you heard Sharon talking about and getting the answers in the application process is a little bit more complicated and it's it's big and it's fast it just came to us fairly recently and we

[04:31:13] have to come up with a plan as you saw earlier in those numbers to provide some form of tutoring to every single one of those students that was identified as low proficient or not proficient and so we have a lot to wrap our our head around and we've got a team Dr. Ellis has a team working right now to put that plan together we'll get it to you as quick as we can and I just can't give you the precise time we we think we're confident we can get it to you in November but I don't have that you know the plan itself to to tell you exactly when anyway all of that said if if the

[04:31:50] board wants to split it that's fine we can work with that and we would like to press forward given the timing challenges of getting the other piece of this in place by January with the the conversation about compensation i think uh one more just comment on the 12 million dollars i think um so we had requested 12 million from state but now that was part of our regular sort of if i'm trying to put a layman's term we requested based on earlier criteria with the 12 million dollars we'll get from lcps but now we came with additional conditions that it needs to be applied

[04:32:27] 1.2 percent to the salary and the second thing is i think we do work i mean as a board um it's ultimately the the superintendents requests and the superintendents budget and i think that's where we typically normally i mean the entire budget is superintendents budget and um and i think i did hear last time and they presented information item two that the supervisor or at least the the supervisor supervisors have some understanding that this is where we would like to go with it so i think that's where dr spence mentioned that uh if we were to support the option

[04:33:05] one then the supervisors are looking to support it as well so i'm we can look to split the option if that the board feel comfortable with it so i don't know miss polifko do you have comment and then would you be open for um a different motion miss polifko thank you mr vice chair i'm fine with an alternate motion i'm fine with us taking uh action tonight on either option one or two if that's what the board would like to do.

[04:33:33] I would like to see the $13 million tabled until there is a plan in front of us. But I'm fine with taking action on the first item this evening. Thank you. Just one last comment.

[04:33:48] So I guess I'm fine with that, but I think we just need to understand the time frame as far as when you need to submit the request for it and the plan so we can probably discuss at the next meeting what that could look like. So, Ms. Polifco, will you withdraw your first motion about tabling this?

[04:34:06] Yes, my original motion about tabling the entire package, absolutely, I do withdraw that motion. And as I said just a few minutes ago, I would like to split the vote tonight. And the board is taking action on whether or not we're going to approve option one or two.

[04:34:26] Mr. Beatty? Point of vote. I think there hasn't been a motion made originally. So you can make a motion, instead of making a splitting motion, you can just make an alternate motion, because there's no motion being made. So you can make a motion without adding the, and to appropriate, so you can remove that, so you can make the motion.

[04:34:47] Ms. Ogadabek, do you have a question, comment? As the motion has been withdrawn, may I make a motion? Certainly. Go ahead. I'd like to make an alternate motion that the Loudoun County School Board requests that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors approve option one and appropriate 12 million dollars to the school operating fund with funding from state revenues adopt the option one salary scales to be effective January 1 2024. Second. Motion made by Ms. Ogadugbe is an alternate motion and then second

[04:35:27] by Ms. Sheridan. Any further comments Mr. Morse? Yes I just want to confirm with the superintendent that option one was the one that you had discussed with county staff and you felt comfortable that they understood the implications on that. Yes, that's correct. Thank you.

[04:35:43] Any further comments, questions? Okay. Ms. Reeser, I'll ask you, do you have any questions, comments before we open up the court? No, thank you. Okay. So, Clerk, could you please open the voting board? And so, Ms. Reeser, the motion is the alternate.

[04:36:10] I'm sure you copied it. As we're voting to it. What is your vote, Ms. Reeser? My vote is yes. Okay. Clark, all right. Clark, you can close

[04:36:31] then display the vote. So board members, we're having a little glitch. Could we just do old

[04:37:40] fashion? Raise your hand and say aye for all those in favor of this motion. Please raise any aye. Aye. And Ms. Reeser, you said yes. Yes. Those who say no, nay. Any abstention? No, yes. So the motion passes, one, two, three, six, six to one, with Mrs. Rodkin and Ms. Corbo absent.

[04:38:08] 610? Yeah. 612. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. So next item on our agenda, Ms. Villaby, thank you.

[04:38:24] We look forward for the remaining half of the presentation in the next meeting. The next item on our agenda is 1302, Finance and Operations Committee, Approval of Capital improvement fund transfer and transfer of county-held LCPS-CIP contingency funding to the school security improvement project, the Arcola ES parking expansion, and the Woodgrove High School field, farm, park, road project.

[04:38:51] Mr. Lewis. So just for the board members, this one came out of Finance and Operations Committee with Mr. Morris and I over there, and I think we requested some additional information for this particular item, and based on the information provided, I thought that the And instead of just being in a concern that the full board gets an opportunity to just kind of see our investment into the security of the schools.

[04:39:15] And that's one aspect I'd like to share. And then the costs are around because of inflation, too. So, Mr. Lewis, I'll pass it on to you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Meheve. We've prepared a couple of slides tonight. And as you pointed out, where the item is from the Finance and Operations Committee and asking for the school board's approval to request the board of supervisors transfer the funds.

[04:39:38] And if you look at the next slide, what I've done is pasted the two charts that are in the board item. And I just thought I would run down through those quickly. Essentially what we're doing in keeping with the policy to working with the capital funding with the county, anytime the project runs short, we will go through all of our existing projects and see if there's any surplus funding left in those to transfer over to the project that needs funds.

[04:40:04] And here you'll see on there, we've identified a number of projects, Independence, Light Ridge, Elaine Thompson. Those projects had funding balances that we're proposing to move into the projects that need funding. I'll call your attention quickly to the Student Welcome Center, if you recall.

[04:40:23] That was a project we had originally planned to put an addition on Sterling Elementary School. When we put that out to bid, it came in almost 100% overbid. And then with the board's consent, we've decided to move towards a lease option for that project. And so what we're showing here is transferring not all of the funding, but we've left enough funding in that project to fit out a lease space once we are able to obtain that.

[04:40:46] So adding all that up and then we would move those numbers over to $5,151,000 into the security improvements projects. And as Mr. Meheve mentioned a minute ago, I'll go a little deeper into that here in a second. But if you go to the next slide, you'll see the next chart, and those were, as I mentioned, current CIP funds with balances.

[04:41:08] This chart shows the projects that we are asking for the county to move money out of the contingency fund. You recall a couple of years ago the county established a capital fund, contingency fund, for projects or situations just like this where funding runs short.

[04:41:26] And you'll see there that we're asking for $15 million to be transferred from that to the security projects, but also to Arcola parking expansion. If you'll notice that we're planning to fix a problem we have at the Arcola campus by putting another entrance on to North Star Boulevard as it comes past and it's getting ready to, you know, it's under construction now.

[04:41:50] That project was originally designed and came in way over budget, and so we're looking to supplement that. as well as the Woodgrove High School second entrance, I'll talk a little bit more about that as well. So you see those three numbers, the five million for the security, 1.2 for Arcola and Woodgrove at 8.8, add up to the 15 million that we're talking about transferring.

[04:42:14] So all total we're talking about about $20 million transferring from different places, 10 of which is gonna be ended up in the security projects. So if you go to the next slide, you'll see here and I'll remind the board and thank the board for your unwavering support for school safety.

[04:42:34] We have worked very hard over several years to put this project together. It was a five-year project for 95 schools with different degrees of scope. It was a multi-year, phase-occupied project. We're done all but six of them, and those will be done over the next summer and into the fall of '24.

[04:42:55] And the reason we're sitting here tonight is because they've had a tremendous amount cost increases, both in scope and in inflation, and inflation is as much as 35%. The bottom of that slide, you'll see a summary of the funding. In FY19, we estimated the project at $83 million, and in FY24, we came to the board and said we've had these same cost overruns and asked for 19 more, and now we're looking for -- we have a $10 million shortfall to finish those six projects going into next summer.

[04:43:27] So I took the total project from 83 million to 112. And so the next slide gives a brief synopsis of what we're experiencing in the industry. And we've been to this board a number of times. Mr. Beatty, you mentioned it earlier about the cost inflation.

[04:43:44] We follow the cost trends with construction projects through three or four different places. You'll see here we've noted engineering news record, the CBRE, and the DPR construction reports. Those are all three organizations that provide projections for construction costs and also historical data.

[04:44:05] And you'll see there from 2020 to 2023, we've had a total of 44% increase in construction costs in the industry. And so that's what's reflected. A minute ago you saw the slide that we had 35%, so that's right in keeping with what we're showing here at the 44.

[04:44:22] So the next slide might be the last slide. Next to the last slide, I just want to give a brief overview of the changes that have been, you know, we talked about scope changes and inflation. But some of the things that we did with the security projects, the first one is entry-related security technology.

[04:44:41] As we did the first year, as you recall, we've been building secure vestibules for a number of years. And then this project went back and put some extra technology in. Lessons learned. We did the first round the first summer. We found some ways we could make that better. And so we had a series of projects that had been done.

[04:44:57] I think there were 51 projects in that first scope of small scope. So we actually went back and redid some of those to make the technology work better. You know, we get in and get the schools working with them, learn some lessons learned about getting visitor management, those types of things. So we made some changes there.

[04:45:13] We went through and put lockdown shades over all the windows and doors in the schools to working with safety and security to help facilitate the lockdown process in each of the schools. Add a security film to all the entry points in the buildings.

[04:45:30] And then the high school media flips, we found that the scope revisions, as we did, there were nine of those schools, and we learned lessons every summer. We did those, started with Tuscarora, and we learned different things about that. So that showed us some unforeseen conditions in those schools. And it was complicated in phase work.

[04:45:46] We started earlier the last two years. We started before, I think, after spring break, just trying to start getting some of the demo done. So all that to say, you know, a specific example, the Stonebridge in Potomac Falls was originally estimated at $13 million and actually ends up costing a $16.7, which is a 29% increase, all following right along those indications of the inflation.

[04:46:10] So we have made some changes. We've made some scope revisions, but a lot of that, most of this has been related to the inflation. And with the board support, you know, obviously we have to continue to boot these projects with the important emphasis on safety of our schools. So then the last slide was just one I wanted to talk a little bit about the Woodgrove High School second entrance.

[04:46:32] If you recall, this was a county park and road project that they had started to do a project there. They funded it in 2015, so this money is very old for this road project. They had a supplemental in 2018. They were designing the park and the road at the same time, but since then the county has decided to relocate their park project and then transfer the money to us to build the road so we could continue to have the second access to the school.

[04:47:01] The balance of the unspent funds was sent to us a couple of months ago, and now the cost estimate is $13.2 million, which is why we're asking for that supplemental funding there. I will say we have also had conversations with county staff on the appropriate way to do this, and so what's reflected in this item is their recommendation of how to prepare that and to request for it to come from contingency funds.

[04:47:24] Regarding the timeline, we are continuing to coordinate with the town of Percival staff and the county of Loudoun staff. The plans have been revised and put into the town for review. That's in process now.

[04:47:39] We expect to be at the town council in November and then construct the project over the summer of next year and be ready for the fall of 24. So that's the overview and the comings and goings of the funding request, and we appreciate the board's support.

[04:48:00] Thank you, Mr. Louis, and I think before I open up for other board members to comment, but thanks for sharing this slide, because I know VE as a board, and you and the superintendent, safety over school and children are top priority, and then I think the investment we're doing, it sort of goes on the consent agenda, and the effort of your staff sometimes is not reflected, so thank you for sharing that.

[04:48:25] I know Stormbridge has been changing the whole library and moving the library back, the bathrooms and everything else that staff rooms I can only imagine I mean that was probably a significant cost to do it and in this time too so thank you and I'll open up a board member questions mr. Morris so would you like me to make the motion and discussion okay thank you I moved at the Latin County School Board to request from the Latin County Board of Supervisors of the transfer of five million one hundred fifty one thousand six hundred seventy From completed capital projects, Independence HS11, $484,431.

[04:49:00] Ledridge High School 09, $12,476. Elaney Thompson Elementary School, $143,427. Hovatter Elementary School, $394,610. Hutchinson Elementary School Edition, $30,733.

[04:49:17] and open Project Student Welcome Center $4,086,000 to the School Security Improvements Project $5,268,475 from county-held LCPS-CIP contingency funding to the School Security Improvements Project $1,265,000 from county-held LCPS-CIP contingency funding to Capital Facilities Renewals and Alterations Fund for the Arcola Elementary School parking expansion project and $8,815,000 from county-held LCPS-CIP contingency funding

[04:49:55] to the Woodgrove High School Fields Farm Park Road project. Second. So, motion made by Mr. Morris and seconded by Ms. Sheridan. Any questions, comments? Ms. Ocadugbe? Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair.

[04:50:11] Just a question about, so it was helpful to hear the information about Woodgrove, that this was a project that was planned years ago And then through a series of events, it's now ours rather than the county's. Can you just provide us some information about why the Arcola parking lot is also prioritized?

[04:50:34] There are a lot of needs across the county. So I'm just trying to understand why these two in particular came forward. I have no questions about why we are prioritizing funding for school safety. I think it's great that we have this opportunity to bring that money forward.

[04:50:54] I just want some more information about the other two projects when there are so many other needs across the county. Thank you. Sure. Thank you for that question. The Arcola parking lot expansion is actually a planned CIP project in our CIP.

[04:51:10] And so it's an established project that was just when we put it out to bid, it came in over budget. So we're sitting waiting for those plans to have adequate funding to be able to execute those. I will say it is a priority. That campus is very constrained. We have one entrance to that off of Tall Cedars.

[04:51:27] This will provide us a second entrance off of North Star Boulevard and I think greatly relieve the congestion on the campus. So it is an important safety project as well as a bona fide CIP existing project. No further questions, comments.

[04:51:47] Clerk, could you open up, try again?

[04:52:02] Ms. Reeser, what is your vote for this? Yes. Clerk, you can close it and display the results.

[04:52:27] How many yes we have? Can we do a hand?

[04:52:44] Okay, so all those in favor, raise your hand, say aye. Ms. Reza's hand. So note that this motion passes with all the more members present and with Ms. Corbo and Mr. Sorotkin absent. Thank you. We can move to the next item on the agenda, 1303, Paraculum and Instructions Committee, Revisions to Policy 5080.

[04:53:07] Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Since Mr. Sorotkin, I don't know, Ms. Reza, do you want to read the motion or do you want me to go ahead? Please go ahead. Okay, I'll make the motion, and then we can go through the discussion.

[04:53:27] I move to the school board review and approve the staff recommended divisions to policy 5080 class size. Motion made, is there a second? Second. Motion made by Mr. Mahedby and seconded by Mr. Morse.

[04:53:45] Since Mrs. Sorotkin's not here, Dr. Ellis, would you like to take this and just walk through this policy tonight? Thank you, Mr. Mahedby. I don't have anything additional to add since this was presented as an information item.

[04:54:05] I do want to mention that SEAC did hold their meeting last week and voted on feedback on several policies, including this policy. Staff received that feedback yesterday from the SEAC representatives, and so I'm not sure if you wanted to.

[04:54:26] It's quite lengthy, so not sure how you want to handle that. Ms. Polifko? Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. While I will note that SEAC only had three recommendations to the revision of the policy, as Dr. Ellis noted, those revisions are quite lengthy, and they did go through substantial feedback at SEAC last week.

[04:54:53] I think it would be best, I'd like to go ahead and make an alternate motion to move this back to the Curriculum Instruction Committee so their feedback can more thoroughly be discussed at that level. I'm not sure that tonight is the night to do that or the place to do that at this point, given the substantial feedback that they provided.

[04:55:13] So the motion on the dais is to send this policy back to the committee. Is there a second? The motion made by Ms. Polifko, seconded by Mr. Morse. Any further comments, questions? Yes, Mr. Morse. I just don't feel armed with all the information coming from SEAC.

[04:55:32] If they have extensive thoughts, I would hate to try to push this through and not be able to digest their comments. So I will support the motion. Instead of going through the electronic, we'll just go through public.

[04:55:49] I mean, please raise your hand. All those in favor, raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Ms. Reeser, your vote? Yes. Yes. So please note that the motion passes with all board members present and with Ms. Sorotkin and Ms. Corvo absent to send this policy back to committee.

[04:56:09] That ends our action items. So board members, if you're okay, we can take a quick 10-minute break. We can come back at quarter past nine. Thank you.

[05:08:29] Item number 14, information item. We'll begin with 1401, Department of Academics, agreement between Loudoun County Public Schools and Thomas Jefferson High School for the science and technology for the student year 2024-2025. Am I passing on to you, Dr. Ellis?

[05:08:46] Yes, sir. Thank you. So this is an annual information item that we are recommending the board take action on as background and by way of review the school board approved the continuation of the lcps agreement with fairfax county public schools for the 24-25 school year on may 23rd 2023 in order to notify fairfax county public schools of any potential changes in our agreement by june 1st the actual contract for the 24-25 school year was

[05:09:20] not available for signature until now we have now received the contract it is in board docs and ready for approval and signature by the school board chair and I'm happy to answer any questions I will note that the date Fairfax requested was it was a very tight timeline we have gotten permission from Fairfax County Public Schools to extend the deadline to October 27th so you can vote at your next meeting and not suspend the rules this evening. Thank you Dr. Ellis. Board

[05:09:58] members any questions on this any interest in putting this on a consent agenda okay we have an agreement on consent agenda ms reaser is it okay to go on consent agenda yes that's fine thank you okay with that we'll move to 1402 department of business and financial services fi 23 county fund balance requests ms willoughby yes thank you this is the recommendation for the request of the counties up by 23 year in fund balance at this time the total amount of the fund balance that

[05:10:36] is available is unknown from the county however I have had conversations with county staff and they're aware of this item coming their way the total amount of the items is 5.6 million dollars as a reminder since it's fund balance or the county's fund balance since one-time revenues so we want to pair that with one-time non-recurring expenditures we went through and identified the items that are in board docs and I'll just quickly go through them just quickly though some of them are related to items that have been removed from the FY24 budget and so we're seeking to have

[05:11:12] funding for those as well as we have identified items that potentially could be or could have been in the FY25 budget and so we're trying to provide some relief on the the request for the FY25 budget so we have two million dollars for the elementary wireless upgrades this is an example of an item that was removed from the FY24 budget for balancing the budget at that time.

[05:11:35] We have a million dollars related to the CTE textbook adoption, and this would support completion of that adoption. Another million dollars for audio enhancements for classrooms. This would be a pilot, and there are a handful of schools identified to be included in that pilot, and the school specifically serves students with hearing impairments.

[05:11:58] $800,000 to upgrade bus security cameras, $500,000 to purchase an hourly employee electronic time card system for facilities. Right now, even though the Oracle system does allow the timekeeping for the staff that's out at the school, such as facilities and school nutrition, it would be a much more efficient process if we could have an electronic time system.

[05:12:27] And then finally, $300,000 to upgrade exterior doors for security purposes. So again, the total request is $5.6 million. And unless otherwise directed, this item would return to the school board for action at the meeting on the 24th.

[05:12:46] I will note, though, that the October 24th school board would be the latest date for the school board to take action to meet the county's deadline because they brought their deadline up or their process earlier in the year. So we're squeezing this in and I'm seeking action at the next meeting.

[05:13:04] Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bellaby. Board members, any questions, comments? Mr. Morris? A quick question on the hourly employee electronic time cards. Is there labor savings associated with the efficiency? Mr. Morris, I'll take that.

[05:13:26] So there is some, certainly there is a good bit of administrative labor savings, but by transferring all that information on paper time cards, so we don't have a quantification for that, but it is a pretty arduous manual labor process to go through and improve all those time cards.

[05:13:45] Okay. I mean, it would be nice if we could quantify some kind of improvement, but from the labor side, is it? Okay, we'll look for something about this in the year-end budget for any adjustments, pluses or minuses, see if we can capture that after several months of experience.

[05:14:09] Mr. Morris, if it helps, I think it says, is it 800 hourly maintenance? So is that the timekeeping? Okay. So I guess, would you want to bring this back as an action?

[05:14:24] Or is there an... I can bring that back as action. I just want them on the back side of this to look for that efficiency so that when the superintendent's looking for pluses and minuses, there might be a 0.2 or 0.3 FTE captured there in savings. So that would be my hope.

[05:14:41] All right. So I guess we'll bring it back as an action item. So fellow board members, I think given the time and the information item agenda, I think we're going to skip around a little bit so we can cover the items we need to cover tonight, and then we can continue with the leftover items. So I'm going to jump to item number 1407, HRTD committee, revisions to policy 7712, sick leave.

[05:15:05] Am I passing it to Ms. Ogetekbe or Ms. Ogetekbe? So just for clarification, are we postponing some of the information items, or you're just reordering them?

[05:15:21] No, not yet. Just reordering right now. depending upon time we'll continue with other ones okay so policy 7712 sick leave was an information item at the august 31st hrtd meeting and the policy was made available for public feedback through the website um i'll i have a couple of comments about this and then i'll ask ms boland if you have any um thing to share as well the updates and this is not in the order i

[05:15:55] expecting so I have to get the right tab up just one second. So this was a policy that where there was actually a great deal of discussion during committee meeting most of which was centered around the current practice of using sick leave in the event of in lieu of bereavement so in the

[05:16:35] event of a family illness or death or another death for which the staff member needs to take time off from work and it raised some questions about why we don't have separate bereavement leaves so that that was something that we had some extensive conversation around it's something that as we look forward to the next budget cycle I am hopeful to be able to have some conversation around having separate bereavement leave I think that where the policy ended up it there is a lot

[05:17:13] of flexibility with the current policy. And there are other provisions for if a staff member runs out of sick leave, there is some personal leave that's available to staff members. But just wanted to recognize that as individuals who may be seeing this policy for the first time are wondering why we're using sick leave for the purposes of bereavement and to just recognize that there conversations about a potential change to that practice. So I don't know, Ms. Boland, if there

[05:17:50] are other things that you wanted to highlight about this particular policy. Thank you, Ms. Ogadegbe. I mean, I think you highlighted the significant piece. Other changes were really just to clarify and clean up language, really trying to clarify where we've seen concerns or questions from employees in the past and to try to clean up and combine family members to really highlight what is currently a significant list.

[05:18:28] But outside of that, I think you captured the other items. Board members, any comments, questions? All right. Any interest in putting on the consent agenda? Ms. Reiser?

[05:18:46] Okay, thank you. So we can place 1407 on the consent agenda for the next meeting. Ms. Reeser, we're going to move to jump to item number 1409 for Legislative and Policy Committee, adoption of 2024 Legislative Program.

[05:19:04] Would you like to take that, or Dr. Smith is here? Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Dr. Smith is going to present our program in person. Dr. Smith, are you looking for somebody else? Good evening, board members. Charlie Jackson from Jackson West is here with us, is going to join me up here.

[05:19:24] as we share the 2024 legislative program that has gone through the Legislative and Policy Committee and is before you tonight as an information item. So the purpose of the legislative program displayed here is displayed here and continues to focus our program as we work to provide state and federal lawmakers with positions that may impact the legislative work taking place during the 23-24 school year. Our timeline of legislative activities on the next slide is here and we're bringing again this to you as an information item this evening and hoping

[05:20:01] there'll be an action item at the last meeting in October. You'll see that we're preparing to share our legislative program with our local delegation in early November and at the statewide VSBA convention in mid-November. This year we've taken a little bit different approach and we've organized our legislative positions into five distinct categories for clarity, ease of use, and understanding. You'll note that the support for students is first, followed by support for teachers, and the largest area of our legislative program is around education funding. So now we'll

[05:20:34] dive into our 2024 legislative agenda. All right, there are three items within the priorities to support students. The JLARC, or the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission study, it was a study that was funded to take a look at education funding in Virginia and reported its findings and recommendations. JLARC determined the standards of quality, the SOQs, used to calculate the state's share of public education costs were inadequate.

[05:21:05] It's evidenced by the fact that every school division in the Commonwealth exceeds most of the standards and have done so for many years. So this year, we've also included specific actions that may be included as a part of these priorities. So they would include JLARC recommendations such as eliminate the support cap and reinstate the non-personal staff categories that were removed in FY09, eliminate federal fund deduction methodology used prior to FY09. Calculate salaries and other cost assumptions using the division average rather than the linear weighted average. Calculate the LCI using a three-year average. Direct the Virginia

[05:21:45] Department of Education to work with school division staff and experts as needed to develop new special education staffing needs estimates. Develop an accurate fixed and prevailing staffing ratios that are based on actual staffing and are simpler, easier to apply, and comprehensive. We also included school mental health and continuation of school free meals, and these two items have been board priorities and are part of the legislative agenda for the past few years.

[05:22:12] The next category in the agenda is the priority support teachers, which also aligns with our strategic plan goal two exemplary staff. The first priority here, commitments to the teaching professions, has added specific language here around actions that it could include, which includes incentives for candidates entering the teaching profession, such as waivers for college tuition and Reuben Board.

[05:22:38] Expanding state funding or oversight for teaching mentorship programs like Reach Virginia. Promote paid internships or student teaching practicums for college students and teacher prep programs. Extend the RIPE grant funding to give all newly hired teachers a signing bonus and not just those that are hired between August 15th and November 15th.

[05:23:00] Routinely update the cost assumptions and use school division salaries for the re-benchmarking process. and implement funding plan to achieve the state goal for teacher salaries. There are also specifics added to address the teacher and substitute shortage. Specifically here, we've included to approve long-term substitutes exceeding 90 days when they're serving in a vacancy or absence for a hard-to-fill teacher position, as identified by VDOE, and update the VDOE technology so that applying for licensure is electronic and not a paper submission.

[05:23:34] The audit of higher education teacher preparation programs is also a new item this year and aligns with supporting the work of the Virginia Literacy Act. Now on to education funding priorities, our third category. The cost of competing funding, COCA, includes a specific action item from the JLARC report to replace the cost of competing adjustment with the Virginia-based labor cost index.

[05:23:59] Other priorities in this category remain from last year's agenda, and they include support the full removal of the support gap, retain unspent appropriations, pre-K for all, unfunded stand-in band-aids, and electric buses and infrastructure.

[05:24:20] Back one. Back one slide for me. There you go. Under state policy positions, we have several priorities here. Progress was made last year in the proper reporting of student or school employee arrests, and this priority has been amended to focus on student arrests. The attendance requirements for accreditation is a new legislative priority.

[05:24:39] It was adopted earlier this year by this board as a part of a proposal for a statewide VSBA legislative position. LCPS has supported dual enrollment as a pathway for students to earn both high school and college credits for a particular course. This legislative item focuses on removing barriers that may limit access to dual enrollment courses, such as the elimination of tuition and reducing the teacher licensure constraints, especially for long-term substitutes for dual enrollment courses.

[05:25:07] Other priorities under state policy positions include broadband access, recognize and support a balanced assessment model, diplomas for students with disabilities, hazing education and curriculum, and a regional governing board for Thomas Jefferson. Finally, we have our federal policy positions, and they include Title IX, lifting the restrictions of e-rate funding, and expansion of JROTC offerings.

[05:25:31] Each of these items were included in our legislative last year, and they remain federal priorities. That concludes the presentation of the 2024 legislative program, and Mr. Jackson and I stand ready to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Dr. Smith.

[05:25:49] Board members, any questions? Ms. Polivko? Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I do have a brief question about the reporting of student arrests, line 285A, and it's actually my question is not about the student arrest.

[05:26:07] My question is why the removal of employee arrests, and I'm asking that because I know back in, I think it was July, there was a new law passed in which law enforcement has to notify school systems of any employee arrests, and I'm wondering how are we documenting that, and if you can just explain why that's no longer, or why that's not included in this document.

[05:26:31] Thanks, Ms. Polifika. I'll start, and if Mr. Jackson has anything to add. So last year we did have it as a legislative priority that we had the reporting of staff and student arrests, And because of the law that you mentioned, that's why this has come out, and the focus is just on the reporting of student arrests.

[05:26:49] And so our process, we do have a process in place with law enforcement where they do notify us, and we do document that. And so we've been working on that since past last year, and we now have a firm process in place that's now actually used.

[05:27:05] We piloted it, and now it is actually used across the state. So we have that in place. We didn't feel like that was needed anymore. Thank you. Mr. Morris. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I think this came up last year with the pre-K for all.

[05:27:25] I just want board members to think about the repercussions of that here in Loudoun County, where we don't have space for the students that we have, where we don't have funding to provide teachers salaries that are, you know, if they're considering not teaching, now we're going to ask for about 10% to 15% more employees because pre-K is going to require a teacher and an assistant. This is a very large bill. And,

[05:27:56] you know, I believe in targeting the pre-K for those populations that desperately need it. I support that. I think pre-K for all is going to be a huge financial burden on us. It's going to make it harder for us to meet our quotas on hiring, and it's going to exacerbate the overcrowding situations that we already have in our schools, so I will never support that. Thank you.

[05:28:25] So first of all, thank you for the presentation. If I may just respond to the concerns around the universal pre-K, I also would be interested in knowing, you know, what percentage of our population and Loudoun County residents would be interested in that. Not everyone even chooses to send their child to pre-K classes if they're in a position to be able to pay for it. But I do think

[05:29:04] from a legislative priority standpoint, it's worth bringing forward recommendations that came from this um study that looked really deeply at where we could improve funding for public education for virginia and based on that i'm i would support including that in the legislative agenda that we move forward understanding that not everything will be approved and if and when it's approved

[05:29:40] there's an opportunity to talk about how it's implemented thank you um i want to speak to the I think the item number 1C, which is continuation of free school meals.

[05:29:57] I mean, this is something I've personally been championing for some time now. So compared to the B and C, there's a line, I think I'll just read the line number there, where it says 48. LCPS calls on the General Assembly to build out funding and structures that support the following, and it goes through that.

[05:30:17] But in the section C, there is no ask. It typically comes out of federal government because that's what the language speaks to. Even though Pennsylvania as a state has offered free meals, universal meals across the state, so I guess I would like to see this clarify as far as where the request is being made.

[05:30:36] I'm guessing it's made to the federal government. Mr. Chairman, the answer is both and, right? There's an effort at the state level, and federally that's definitely been the route, so the answer is both.

[05:30:54] So I'd just like to request that the language be cleaned up so that we can be clear about this request. We'll need to go to both the places. Any further questions, comments? So given that there's going to be some changes, we'd like to bring back as an action item for the next school board meeting.

[05:31:10] So thank you. Board members, we'll move to item number 1413, Department of School Leadership, Revisions of Policy 8260, Reporting of Student Conduct.

[05:31:47] So Ms. Michelle? Good evening. This was taken back to the SBAC, the Student Behavior and Accountability Committee, and it is now being brought back to the full board as an information item.

[05:32:13] There were not any significant changes to the policy at the SBAC. Thank you. I'll just add to that. this is this is the policy where the from the recommendations from the state to make sure that the the reporting is done for the 24 hours the parents I believe this is where on line number 137 that's the significant change in this policy right I believe there's incident of bullying it needs to be notified within 24 hours of the parents that's the I think believe one of the

[05:32:49] parts of the model policy from the governor that's that's been added to it I don't know if Anything else, board members, any questions or comments on this? Ms. Polifko? Thank you, Mr. Vice-Chair. I just want to confirm that this was one of the policies that SEAC did not have any feedback for.

[05:33:09] If anyone can provide me with that confirmation, I believe SEAC did not submit any further feedback. We did not receive feedback on this policy. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Board members, any interest on putting this on a consent agenda?

[05:33:29] Ms. Reaser? Yes. Okay. So 14. 13 can be placed on a consent agenda. We'll move to item number 14. 15 out of student services, revision of policy 81. 40, student attendance requirement. To move this forward, I guess I'll pass it on to you, Ms. Teda Richardson, for that.

[05:34:03] Thank you, Mr. Mahedavy. Let's see. In 2021-22, LCPS had a chronic absentee rate of 13%, as you all know. And with the new Virginia school accreditation model, we now have 57 schools identified at level 2 and 9 schools identified at level 3.

[05:34:22] So, the revisions to this policy are made to focus us on a consistency in practice and our procedures. I draw your attention to the actual policy. Section A, number one, starting on line 14, we removed language, which has been included in other sections of the policy pertaining to notification of absences by parents to the school.

[05:34:50] Section A, number two, starting on line 24, we've added new language pertaining to absences for the observance of religious holidays. These absences are excused, and students are afforded the ability to make up assignments.

[05:35:08] Written verification for the absence is required by the parent. Moving on to section B, which contains our definitions, looking at item A, there's a change to line 48 for the definition of an excused absence.

[05:35:32] From the discretion of the principal or designee, the change now says defined by this policy. I draw your attention to lines 51 through 53. Additional language has been added to support building leadership in requesting proper documentation or explanation for an absence to be excused.

[05:35:57] If we could look to lines 56 to 134, that's an expansive section. This section captures the reasons for excusal. There's been an expansion of personal illness or injury to include mental health and substance use illnesses.

[05:36:20] We've referenced school suspensions, trips, and activities that enhance learning with prior principal approval. We also denote that secondary students who participate in an optional civic activity or event are allowed to do so at one per year.

[05:36:42] We also capture the provisions for students participating in 4-H activities, and we have captured language to support the participation in state or federally recognized tribal nation events.

[05:37:00] I bring your attention down to item B in that section. We define unexcused absences starting on line 139.

[05:37:15] We extend the time of notification from three days to five days. Lines 144 through 146, we provide examples of unexcused absences. This is not an exhaustive list.

[05:37:33] Lines 148 to 152, we address the administrative authority of the principal to change an unexcused absence to an excused absence with an acceptable reason or other extenuating circumstances as provided by the parent or guardian.

[05:37:59] Item C addresses absences due to suspensions. These are excused absences. Students are afforded the ability to access and complete their assignments.

[05:38:15] We're moving on to item number four on line 177, which is makeup work. Absences, either excused or unexcused, schools can require students to complete makeup work.

[05:38:30] Students and teachers work to create a plan for makeup work upon the student's return from their absence. Work that is not completed within the agreed upon timeframe may negatively impact a student's final grade.

[05:38:49] Work that is completed within the timeframe will count as if it was timely submitted. Looking to item six on lines 200 through 204, the excellent attendance certificates.

[05:39:07] If a school does award these certificates, they must present a certificate to all students that have unexcused absences, I'm sorry, with unexcused absences and those with no more than five excused absences.

[05:39:27] So they cannot submit with unexcused absences. I apologize. Section C, for compulsory attendance, from lines 209 to 212, we have identified the roles of staff members that monitor student absences and can provide support and interventions to improve attendance.

[05:39:56] Item two, lines 218 to 224, there is required contact by school personnel to the parent or guardian and we must document the absence in accordance with this policy.

[05:40:16] Item three, lines 226 to 231, we define the threshold that triggers actions to support a pattern of chronic absenteeism, five or more days of unexcused absences.

[05:40:32] And then we also have a reference to a code update. Item five of this section, lines 237 to 241, referrals to an attendance officer for unexcused absences and non-compliance with established interventions is defined.

[05:40:53] We also go on to state that an attendance officer can submit the repeated concerns to the Loudoun County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts for legal intervention. And lastly, item six is the requirement of the superintendent or designee to review all reports for non-enrolled students and to seek a valid reason.

[05:41:21] All redlined and clean copies, as well as feedback, is attached, and feedback from SEAC was received yesterday. Thank you, Mr. Richardson. It's got a few changes in there. Board members, any questions, comments?

[05:41:38] Ms. Oka-Dekve? Thank you so much. So I guess the question with this coming to the full board today and with SEAC feedback being received yesterday, I'm assuming the SEAC feedback is not incorporated?

[05:41:57] No, SEAC's feedback has not been incorporated. So Ms. Okudek, looking at their feedback, I think some of them is pretty straightforward in terms of what the recommendations are. We can probably make adjustments as part of the action item, if we could do that.

[05:42:21] My only other comment, which I should have caught up in the committee itself, is the makeup work, Ms. Richardson. Because if you're looking to change the chronic absenteeism, and I can see students who are, I think this is where the difference come in, where if they're excused versus unexcused.

[05:42:41] So if they're excused, I can see the opportunity for them to do make-up war. But if it's unexcused, then this becomes a disincentive for them to not take additional days off. I mean, so I don't know if something to, this is something I should have caught up in the committee itself, but I think something to look forward.

[05:43:04] Maybe I'll have another conversation with you offline about this as we prepare for the action item for this in the next school board meeting. Thank you. So if there's no further questions, thank you, Mr. Richardson. We'll bring this item back as an action item and make sure that we go through the CI comments and additional feedback from the board members.

[05:43:24] We'll move to item number 1416. This is out of Department of Support Services, 2023-2024 Enrollment Report. Mr. Lewis and Ms. Tate.

[05:43:51] Thank you, Mr. Behavey. Tonight, Ms. Tate and I bring to you the unofficial September 30 enrollment report for the school year 23-24. As you'll see in the chart, the unofficial number is 82,129 students that are in school today, and that is 98.9% of the projected number, but it does fall short of what was projected by 932 students.

[05:44:22] So at this point, we don't have a lot more information. I will say that you might also notice 104 short from how many were in the official number for September 30th of 2022. So we do have fewer students this year than we did last year.

[05:44:40] These numbers will be produced and talked about quite a bit in the capital budget as they come forward here. And we'll have all the projections for the school year 24-25 at that point. But here today, we're only providing you with a snapshot in time for September 30.

[05:44:58] And you also see every year we normally get questions about the special permissions in and out. So that information has been provided as well as the school box school enrollment for each year. So we are happy to take any questions you may have. Board members, any questions, comments?

[05:45:19] Mr. Beatty. Thank you. Are those changes, I guess the fewer enrollments, is that affecting certain areas of the county? Because we've got, like I think I mentioned, we've got a new high school coming on. How is it going to affect the population there?

[05:45:34] I know that there's a lot of development there, so I assume we're seeing bigger drops in other parts that is going to affect that. Mr. Beatty, we're seeing enrollment shifts at elementary and secondary level. We do have parts of the county like the Dulles North area and Dulles South.

[05:45:54] We are still showing some growth at certain schools, but we're looking at that, and we will follow up more when we present the CIP in November. Okay, thank you. So, Ms. Tate, I guess I have one question.

[05:46:10] I think the numbers, and this is probably like visualizing the numbers in terms of where we see reduction. Is there a different way to present this data besides just the schools to see geographically where we're seeing a reduction or increase?

[05:46:28] Is there a way for us to do that somehow? That too, Mr. Mahedvi, will be part of the CIP. As you recall, we provide enrollment and capacity and utilization detail by planning district and by school level.

[05:46:45] So we will be able to provide that to you in chart form, and we can certainly work on a visual as well from that. Thank you. So, Ms. Rieser, do you have any questions? All right.

[05:47:02] Thank you, Ms. Tate. No, I do not. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. With that, we'll move to item number 1417, coming out of Department of Student Services, School Psychologist Week Proclamation.

[05:47:18] Ms. Richardson. Thank you. This year's theme, Let's Grow Together, is inspired by the importance of both personal and shared strengths in our growth as individuals and school communities in every season of life.

[05:47:35] The theme recognizes every aspect of growth as fundamental to effective learning environments and to the school psychologist role in supporting student well-being and learning. Consistent with the NASP theme, Loudoun County Public Schools 64 school psychs and six school psych interns are a talented group of dedicated professionals who are not only viewed as leaders in their respective school buildings, but also at the division state and national levels.

[05:48:12] We're proud to highlight the outstanding work of the school system. The LCPS School Psych's impact on the field is evidenced through their presence and invited presentations at state and national conferences. Such impact is similar to top-tier colleges and universities and is a testament to the caliber of psychologists that LCPS is fortunate to recruit and retain.

[05:48:40] With specialized training in prevention, intervention, assessment, and mental and behavioral health, LCPS school psychologists are committed to serving the needs of their students, families, schools, and communities.

[05:48:59] School psychs and LCPS provide a wide range of services that supports students' academic achievement and social and emotional well-being. in preschool through 12th grade. With expertise in mental health, learning, and behavior, school psychs work to help all children and youth succeed academically, socially, behaviorally, and emotionally.

[05:49:28] School psychs provide coaching support to school teams in implementing the multi-tiered system of support framework to create a positive, inclusive, safe, and supportive learning environment. to maximize instructional opportunities, and to increase the development of pro-social behaviors and connection with others.

[05:49:54] They assist school leadership teams in implementing frameworks that emphasize early identification of at-risk learners, multi-tiered intervention, and monitoring of student progress. School psychs lead mental health, such as sources of strength that promote mental health resiliency and strengths in youth, and link families and students to much-needed mental health resources.

[05:50:23] School psychs support students through a provision of counseling and consultation so children can benefit from their education and live more productive lives. They also serve on evaluation teams to identify educational disabilities as early as possible to better address the educational needs of students with disabilities.

[05:50:49] This proclamation is being presented to raise the awareness and to highlight the positive contributions that school psychologists make to the school division. the recommendation is that the loudon county school board adopts the proclamation recognizing november 6th through the 10th as school psychologist week you have a copy of the red line and a clean copy attached in board docs thank you thank you mr. Richardson any comments questions any interest in putting on the concern agenda no okay all right this we'll bring

[05:51:27] this back in action item maybe next year all right i think we'll go through um dr smith will jump into 1410 legislative and policy committee revision of policy 2010 legal status authority

[05:51:57] powers and duties give me just one moment right uh vice chairman ahead of the board members so

[05:52:34] uh here tonight is uh policy 2010 uh legal status authority powers and duties that came through the legislative and policy committee it was recommended voted 2-0 to come to the full board with one board member absent at the time and so I'll walk you through some of those changes I will say that the changes that have been made to policy 2010 are primarily all towards changes in Virginia code so you'll see that in many places throughout the policy we have changed we just capitalized

[05:53:13] school division. In line 64, we reduced public comment from 10 days to 7 days. Line 87, we added specialized student support positions and school bus drivers. Line 93, we defined specialized student support positions to include school social workers, school psychologists, school nurses, licensed behavior analysts, licensed assistant behavior analysts, and other licensed health and behavior positions, which may be either employed by the school board or provided through contracted services and that's from virginia code line 106 we insured that we put to ensure the information

[05:53:50] sheet on the supplemental nutrition assistance program or snap benefits program developed and provided by the department of social services pursuant to subsection d virginia code is sent home with each student enrolled in lcps elementary or secondary school at the beginning of each school year or in the case of any student who enrolls after the beginning of the year as soon as practical after enrollment line 115 we added ensure that a fillable free or reduced price meals application is sent home with each student enrolled in an LCPS elementary or secondary school at the beginning of each school year or in the case of a student who enrolls after the start of the school year as soon as

[05:54:29] practical and in line 121 also added that ensure that any LCPS back to school night event to which parents of enrolled students are invited any parent in attendance receives prominent notification of and access in paper or electronic form or both to information about application and eligibility for free and reduced-price meals for students in a fillable free or reduced-price meals application that may be completed and submitted on-site.

[05:54:56] Those were the changes for policy 2010. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Board members, any questions? Just FYI, SEAC did provide some feedback. I think there are a couple, looks like, straightforward changes that we could make as an action item too. So I don't know if any board members have any additional comments. No? Okay. We can bring this back as an action item to the next school board meeting. We'll stay with Legislative Policy Committee 1411, Dr. Smith. Revisions of Policy 2160,

[05:55:31] Conflict of Interest and Disclosure of Economic Interest. All right. Policy 2160, Conflict of Interest and Disclosure of Economic Interest. Again, changes here are primarily due to changes in Virginia Code. Line 69, there's a change for foreign country of concern, means any country designated by the Secretary of State to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2019, or the 73 Foreign Assistance Acts of 1961.

[05:56:05] Line 325 says, so as long as the foreign dignitary is not a representative of a foreign country of concern. And line 604 and line 606, we removed the word elected. I believe those were all the changes in the conflict of interest and disclosure of economic interests.

[05:56:27] Thank you, Dr. Smith. Board members, any questions, comments? It's like straightforward. Any interest in putting on the Senate consent agenda? Ms. Reiser? Yes. Thank you. We'll put this on consent agenda.

[05:56:46] We'll move to 1412. Dr. Smith, Legislative Policy Committee, Division of Policy 3120, Powers and Duties of the Division of Superintendent. Yep. One more policy from Legislative and Policy Committee tonight, Policy 3120, Powers and Duties of the Superintendent.

[05:57:04] Again, driven by Virginia code changes. Line 4, we replaced Division with Superintendent. Line 29, we replaced Board with School Board. Line 67, we added the term around specialized student support positions, and we added the sentence specialized student support positions include school social workers, school psychologists, school nurses, licensed behavior analysts, licensed assistant behavior analysts, and other licensed health and behavioral positions, which may either be employed by the school board or provided through contracted services.

[05:57:37] And then the last change was on line 81, annually designated a school division employee as a school division safety official whose duty it is to receive reports pursuant to subsection A of Virginia code and including such designation as the collated packet of school safety audits submitted to the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety.

[05:57:56] the designation includes updated contact information for the school division safety official including the mailing address phone number email address fax number and the superintendent should contact update this contact information within 48 hours of any such change thank you dr. smith board members any thoughts questions again see i provided some feedback on this thing so i'm guessing we want to place as an action item for the next board meeting okay we'll bring it back as an action item to the next board meeting.

[05:58:30] Thank you. We'll go back to item number 1403, Curriculum and Instructions Committee, Revisions to Policy 5060, Textbook Furnished Free.

[05:58:48] Sorry, I take that back. That's another one. 1404, Finance and Operations Committee, Revision of Policy 6220, Student Safety and Discipline on Buses. 1404, Mr. Lewis, sorry. Please jump around a little bit.

[05:59:15] Thank you, Mr. Meheve. So tonight we bring to you some revisions to Policy 6220, that have been through the Finance and Operations Committee the redline policy in the document looks pretty heavy but there's just a lot of clarification but most of it is clarifying things we moved like in line 23 to 27 we moved it the information about the student rights and responsibilities down to an area that it seemed to fit better in line 39 through 40 I'll point out that it includes a request for parents to accompany their child to the bus stop

[05:59:50] and in no case shall a kindergartner be unescorted to the bus stop or to school we also had some information that Miss Mitchell helped us with when in the conversations about regarding disciplinary issues on the bus and when it got reported and you'll see that is in line 67 and 68 where it's been highlighted in yellow or it talks about the fact that we would put information related to discipline issues in the system within two days and then the next area in line 71 and 72 talking about principles shall take appropriate action

[06:00:29] receiving such reports so these are all related to discussions we had and I think we came to a good conclusion there and then I think the rest of the items are mostly clarifying but we are happy to take any questions you may have we've also put in there the comments we got back from the different organizations for the policy. Thank you, Mr.

[06:00:49] Lewis. I remember the FNOV made changes to line 66, 67, and then 71 and 72 the last time we did that. So, board members, any questions, comments? Ms. Ogadek, may? Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. So, this one also has some feedback from SEAC that came in recently, and there are five or six, I guess, six items that were brought up, one of which is a recommendation to remove line 31 the bus driver is responsible for the discipline of students on

[06:01:28] the bus so i think their concern as stated on page four of the document was bus drivers should not be authorized to discipline students they can report and manage incidents but should not oversee the discipline of any student and the focus of the bus driver needs to be on student safety and driving the bus and so i know you know this is as an information item and for potentially action next time but i'd be interested for that one in particular the other suggestions seem a bit

[06:02:05] more straightforward so i just wanted staff's response to that mr davies was with me but he left a little bit ago i think we weren't going to get to this item but generally speaking the the bus driver is the sole person on the bus that's responsible to maintain decorum on the on the bus and so they are trained in disciplinary activities that have lead drivers and supervisors that also support that when they have issues rare occasions as they pull off the side of the bus and deal with discipline issues but then that's all reported to the school when when the driver gets

[06:02:36] to the school and then those are those the actual response to that is is managed by the school so maybe the i maybe their concern is like the obviously a driver will have to part of maintaining safety on the bus is addressing behavior that's putting other students at risk from a safety perspective perhaps the concern is more so the final final disposition on discipline wouldn't be with the bus driver and i don't think that that's what the policy is trying to state they

[06:03:13] would there's still uh years they would bring that back to the school and the school would be involved in absolutely right so there could be some clarification of language there thank you thank you mr. vice chair I'll make this brief just to follow up because I was at the committee meeting last week I think that miss okay to be correct the concern is that in the language it looks as though the bus driver would be responsible for handling the discipline we understand that the bus driver is responsible for maintaining order on the bus but that the final authority in

[06:03:50] terms of disciplinary outcome rests with the the school administration itself And so I think if we can just clarify that language in the policy, we can tie this up and move on in terms of that recommendation. But of course, we have some others to bring forward as action at the next meeting.

[06:04:10] So we'll take a look at that and propose some language for the come back as action. Awesome. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. And this will bring this back into the action item. I think today we'll take one more item and then for the information. 1806, Ms. Ogedek, the HRDD committee, revisions to policy 7562, professional learning.

[06:04:38] So if I may just ask, I'm a little lost with the changing of the order of things. Are we not coming back to 4.03, which was the discussion of the review of the standing committees?

[06:04:58] Because my understanding is that was coming back in when we talked through the information items because we ran out of time in the working session. Yeah, I think I believe there are a few items that, given the long information item, we have five items we're looking to move to the next meeting as an information item, and 14.03 is one of them we're looking to move.

[06:05:20] Right? That's not us. I see. Okay. So remind me, which one am I on now? 14.06, revision to policy 7562, professional learning.

[06:05:40] Okay, thank you. So policy 7562 was an information item at the August 31st HRTD committee.

[06:05:56] meeting the policy was made available for public feedback and came back through for action and the committee voted to move this forward for information at the school board it's a very brief policy but essentially just outlines the intent of how professional learning what the goals there with specific additions starting on line three that as an integral component of the comprehensive plans

[06:06:35] required by Virginia code 22.1-253-136 LCPS shall include high quality professional learning and development programs that support the recruitment employment professional growth and retention of qualified teachers and then at the end of the paragraph just a statement that the school board shall annually review its professional learning program for quality effectiveness participation by instructional personnel in relevancy to the instructional needs of teachers and academic

[06:07:12] achievement and safety needs of LCPS students. This is an item that most of that language comes directly from code. We did add the word safety to that, which was not in Virginia code because we felt like that we needed to make sure that as we're reviewing the professional learning program safety should also be a part of that review and my understanding from staff and if someone can just remind us when the school board will be receiving this information for this annual

[06:07:51] review I understood that that was perhaps end of October maybe November I don't remember how about we get back to you with an answer to that one and obviously we'll talk about an agenda planning but we'll let you know I appreciate that I think the point being that this was something new

[06:08:29] and so just to note for the public that this is something I'll be coming forward to the board thank you would you like to bring this as an action item board members any other questions on this policy board members are you okay with the consent for this particular policy all this okay Miss Reeser? Yes. Okay. So we can place this 7562 on consent agenda. So board members,

[06:09:06] we have four information items that will push it out to the next school board meeting. We'll move to item number 15, closed meeting. Do we have a motion to convene closed meeting, Ms. Ogadegme? Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I move that the Loudoun County School Board recessed this public meeting and enter into a closed meeting pursuant to 2.2-3712 of the Code of Virginia for the following, consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body pertaining to Loudoun County Circuit Court matter CR-37874 and CR-37875 and requiring

[06:09:45] the provision of legal advice by such counsel as authorized by 2.2-3711A7 and 2.23711A8 of the Code of Virginia. Is there a second? Second. Any further comments, questions? Mr. Spence? Yeah, I'm sorry.

[06:10:07] Just before you vote to go into close, I just needed to offer a point of clarity. You mentioned that there were four items moving to the next agenda. It's actually five items because Ms. So it was 4.03, which was originally a work session item, was pushed to information. So it's five items, and we'll move them to the next agenda for planning.

[06:10:24] Thank you. I forgot the work session item that we have. Thank you. Thank you for being there, Dr. Spence. If no more comments, all the board members, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Note that the motion passes with all the board members present, with Mr. Sorotkin and Ms. Corbo absent.

[06:10:42] The board is now at a closed meeting. Thank you.

[06:25:00] That the closed meeting be adjourned.

[06:39:16] the Loudoun 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 further move that the following resolution certifying the closed meeting be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting. Resolution 08-23-24, whereas the Loudoun County School Board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative record recorded vote and in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, and whereas 2.2-3712D of the Code of

[06:39:56] 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 Loudoun County School Board hereby certifies that, 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 meeting to which this certification applies, and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the Loudoun County School Board.

[06:40:33] Is there a second? Second. Motion made by Ms. Ogadugbe, seconded by Mr. Morse. Any questions, comments? All those in favor, raise your hand and say aye. Aye. The motion passes with all the board members present, with Ms. Corbo, Ms. Zorotkin, and Ms. Reza absent.

[06:40:53] So board members, is there any interest for board member comments so we can skip that tonight? We'll move to next item, new business. Any new business tonight? I'm sorry? Okay, with no new business, we can adjourn the meeting.

[06:41:12] Thank you, everyone. Good night.

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