Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Loudoun Education Alliance of Families (LEAF) Committee Meeting, Monday, October 16, 2023

Date: Monday, October 16, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 28m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/875311659?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 2026-10-21. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:06:47] testing. It's really loud. I don't need to hear my voice that much, but okay. All right, you want me to go ahead and get started? Awesome. Thank you. Yes, if you want to. How are we doing? We bump a little bit, but not much. Do you want to do it after we approve? Okay, let's see. Action items. Minutes. Is it where the house, where's the housekeeping? I think we

[00:07:24] should do that where the housekeeping is, but it's not in here. Let's do it in the except minutes. That sounds like a good place to plug it in. Okay, thanks Jenny. All right, good evening everyone. Welcome LEAF members. We have a full agenda tonight, so if you will find your seats by district, please be sure to fill out the attendance form on the computer at your table.

[00:08:01] So I'm going to call to order the meeting. I welcome LEAF members to the October 16th Loudon Education Alliance of Families meeting. The meeting will come to order. As we begin our agenda this evening seats are by planning district clusters please be sure to sign in we are continuing to implement our new attendance process and appreciate your support there are two options a computer at the end of each table for you to use or a qr code or url to access with your phone as a reminder staff and the officers do not share a list of contact information so please feel free to share your contact information with those in your district as needed anyone attending who is not

[00:08:39] a school board approved member or alternate should sit in the public viewing area. LEAF meetings are open to the public. Lowndes County residents are welcome to attend the meeting but must refrain from interrupting the meeting's agenda. Per the LEAF charter bylaws, public comments should address an agenda item. Members of the public who wish to address items on the agenda may do so at this time. Tonight's agenda includes a school board update, a presentation from the office of the ombuds, a presentation from the Special Programs Office, and an agenda topic member activity.

[00:09:15] Do we have any public comments tonight? Seeing that no one is providing public comment, we will move on to Agenda Item 3, Approval of the Minutes. The meeting minutes for the September 18, 2023 meeting are on the LEAF website and a few copies at your table to provide another opportunity for review.

[00:09:35] I will entertain a motion to accept the minutes from the September 18, 2023 meeting as submitted. Do we have a motion? We have a motion to, is there a second?

[00:09:53] Thank you, we have a second. All in favor say aye. All those opposed. With no changes requested, the minutes stand approved as submitted. The minutes are approved and we will move on to the information items. Ginny is going to give us an update on membership.

[00:10:12] Good evening, everyone. We have had some movement and this does not reflect anything that has happened since, what is the date? 16th, okay. Thank you. So we are at 69% of elementary schools.

[00:10:32] So if any of you have connections with any of these schools or friends, please encourage. Arcola, Banneker, Cardinal Ridge, Creighton Corner, Discovery, Dominion Trail, Elaine Thompson, Forest Grove, Frances Hazel Reed, Frederick Douglass, Guilford, Hillside, Hutchinson Farm, Lincoln, Lovettsville, Middleburg Community Charter, Rolling Ridge, Seldon's Landing, waterford so again we're at 69 43 out of 62 schools middle school didn't budge 71 12 out of

[00:11:11] 17 we are missing blue ridge harmony mercer sterling willard high school 50 percent 9 out of 18 briarwoods broad run dominion freedom loudon county parkview tuscarora woodgrove so if any of you out there have any connections with any of these schools please reach out and let's keep working to get more voices out in our community any questions thank you thanks jenny next i invite

[00:11:48] our school board representative for leaf erica ogadegby to provide a school board update thank you and good evening some of these will actually be a little bit redundant for some items that you have on the agenda but i wanted to bring forward some information about the meeting that we had last week um the first one is related to the fy24 budget and there was supplemental funding that

[00:12:23] came through from the state that we had some discussions about last week um in the end the board did decide to allocate that funding to um salaries which will result in an additional two on top of the 5% already passed earlier in the summer there was some lengthy discussion about it because there had been when these when the county had initially come through with the funding in the summer to make up for the gap that we had in the budget from the state there was a discussion about returning a

[00:12:59] portion of the funds if we were to get funded funding from the state my understanding though is that staff had a conversation with county personnel to ask them you know we would like to propose to the to the school board two options one of which is that we actually allocate all of the funding for a teacher and staff salaries or return funds in the county while they still need to have that discussion and vote about it they were comfortable with our making that request so that was the way that the board had decided to move

[00:13:33] forward with that. The other item that we talked about also from finance and operations had to do with the capital improvement funds and being able to move forward sooner than we had anticipated because there were funds available from projects that actually cost less than had been anticipated and so we're moving forward and moving ahead in the schedule the completion of the security

[00:14:02] improvements projects um sooner than we thought we could do um and then some um parking and roadway improvements at arcola elementary school and woodgrove high school both of which as i understand are addressing safety concerns coming in and out of those parking lots um the other item and i don't i don't know if this is on the agenda but just wanted to make sure that people had seen the information about the pilot program for middle school intramural sports which started this fall at four of our middle schools including Seneca Ridge, Smartsmill, Harper Park, and River Bend.

[00:14:42] The fall sport is volleyball and there's also, I'm sorry, football and there's also volleyball, soccer, and basketball. And I was actually curious just from those of you here, anybody have somebody, a child who's participating in the intramural sports this fall? A couple people.

[00:15:01] Can I go off script and ask how it's going? Good.

[00:15:16] Okay. Yeah, in our household, we're not a football family. We're more of a soccer family, so we haven't gotten there yet, but I'm just curious around the room. Okay. The other two items are on the agenda, so I was going to talk about the IB program.

[00:15:46] You'll have more details from the presentation and the dual language immersion program, both of which started this fall, so we'll hear some more detailed updates this evening. And then the other piece of news that I'm not sure if folks saw was that LCPS moved up to number four in the niche ranking of Virginia school districts.

[00:16:04] So with all of that said, I wanted to welcome Ms. Williams to the podium to give us an update from the Office of the Ombuds. Good evening, everybody. I'm very happy to be here today.

[00:16:29] Last year, I was presenting to LEAF about the same time, and everything that I shared was hypothetical because I was brand new to the rule, opening the office, and really communicating with everybody what the intention of the office is and how I was planning on operating. And I'm happy to report that that all did come to fruition, but now I have a little bit more of specific insight to share.

[00:16:51] I'll give you some high-level data. I will be sharing my full report with the board on October 24th, and that will be posted that evening or the next day. So if you would like to see my full annual report, you can check on that next week, and it will be posted. So just a short review of my role.

[00:17:09] If you are new to LEAF or if you haven't seen some of the communication in my outreach throughout the last year, ombudsman or ombuds is a Swedish term. It's Scandinavian. It was really originated as a check and balance for government entities to make sure that citizens could raise concerns without, in a confidential space, without fear of retaliation or any obstacles and having their voices be heard.

[00:17:35] And as it came over to the United States, it first went into the collegiate world, and most colleges will have either an employee and or student ombudsman. But there are only about 35 of us across the country in the K-12 public school setting.

[00:17:50] So it is the unique role and happy that Loudon really sees the value in that and having my office established so that I can work with students, families, employees, and community members who might have issues or concerns within the division or maybe just need help navigating a process or a regulation or a policy or understanding their options and how they might choose for themselves to advocate for themselves and move forward.

[00:18:16] I operate under the International Ombuds Association core values, and these four tenants, I explain to every visitor that contacts my office. First and foremost, I'm a confidential resource. Unless it is around imminent risk of harm to self or others, Title IX reporting or CPS reporting, because I am also a mandated reporter, what a visitor shares with me remains between us unless I have their express permission to share it outside of our conversation.

[00:18:45] So I think that draws a lot of individuals to me where, yes, they could contact another office directly, but they're not bound by that same confidentiality as I am. I'm independent in the sense that I report to the chief of staff. I sit in the superintendent's office, so a lot of people look at me and say, well, how can you really be independent?

[00:19:04] You work for the school division. You report to the chief of staff. I'm independent in the sense that I don't have other roles or responsibilities that would keep me from being impartial or neutral when working with somebody. Some smaller divisions will have an ombuds, but then they also do like six or seven other things.

[00:19:20] And then if you had a problem about one of those things, it would be really hard for me to be impartial if I was trying to work through options or tell you how to escalate something that might be about me. So that is my sole role and responsibility, helps me remain independent so that I can impartially serve our community.

[00:19:36] And I'm informal. So if somebody contacts me, they're not starting a process, they're not rolling the ball down a particular pathway. It's really to discuss the concerns, give them time and space to share what's going on, talk about what options they have considered, and then also maybe present some other options they just weren't aware of, and then they figure out how they would like to move forward. Sometimes I have a role in that. I might elevate things anonymously on their behalf. I might do some research or help point them to the right policy or regulation. Sometimes people just want an impartial sounding board. I've had people, employees, call me and say, I have to present

[00:20:13] something to my boss and I don't know if it makes any sense can I present it to you and I'm like sure I know nothing about it so I can let you know if it makes sense to me it's always like when I go into a math classroom if I leave that math classroom and I know that I've learned something new they're teaching what they're supposed to teach so I can do that for individuals some people sometimes people just want a reality check like this happened am I blowing it out of proportion or does this make sense so I can do all of those things and in certain capacities people think that they should come to me at the end of the process and people can reach out to me at any point in time at the beginning in the middle or at the end but if they're in a formal

[00:20:50] process I can't insert myself into that process but I can maybe help at the end understand appeal process processes or if there are other avenues to elevate their concerns I do like to highlight that while I feel like my role can help provide support for many different areas of our strategic plan that I am able to elevate trends and themes that I see within my data to help with our continuous improvement as a division and really the trust through listening oftentimes other directors who have many different responsibilities on their plate they don't have 90 minutes to spend with somebody to listen

[00:21:27] thoroughly to what their concerns are and the beauty of my role is I have that time and space to spend as much time as needed with an individual to truly understand what's going on, to come back to it multiple times if needed, to work with other individuals in the division if needed, to gather information and report that back. So it's not just a 15-minute conversation. I provide as much opportunity as needed until they feel like they at least understand what's going on or that they have exhausted all of their options. And then we're really working in goal 4. My data is part of goal 4.3, an engaged community, and part of that goal

[00:22:06] and my strategies for engaging the community is continuing my outreach efforts to groups such as yours to make sure that you know that I exist. And when you're talking to your neighbors or to your friends or to your children's friends, that you can share the word as well and let people know that I'm here as a resource. So as I said, I listen to concerns. I clarify what the issue at hand might be and ask, what would you like as an ultimate end game here? What resolution are you seeking. I look for under underlying issues and interests to really help people kind of think

[00:22:41] through kind of coaching and prioritizing how they might like to handle their concern. I give a lot of information out, connect people to policies, give them direct referrals to individuals. Some of our email addresses or using our client management system, you might feel like you're not connecting with a specific person. And if I know that I can connect you with the right person, then you might not be passed around from office to office or trying to find the right person to help you navigate. We look at options. I try to empower visitors to make sure that they know how to best advocate for themselves. I don't advocate for them, but I advocate for a fair

[00:23:18] and equitable process. And then if I see things that in my data are kind of repetitious or I'm seeing a trend or a theme, then I have that conversation with the chief of staff for the superintendent, that, hey, I'm not breaking confidentiality, but I can say, I've seen X number of cases around this particular process. Is that something we want to revisit?

[00:23:40] I do a lot of conversation facilitation. I am the sole entity in LCPS that people can reach out to for staff-staff conflict, so I know that that, but I have also helped navigate student-staff, not student-staff conflict, but parent-staff conflict or concerns that they might need to bring in an external resource to help have those facilitated conversations or informal mediations and then like I said I identify trends and themes to the superintendent so I do not act as an advocate I'm really looking at the process behind that I am not the recipient of legal notice so if somebody came to me and said I'm you know I'm putting the office the

[00:24:19] division on notice I can say thank you for that but I'm not the right person that you need to talk to about that but I can point you in the right direction of who you should talk to about that. I don't conduct formal investigations. Classical ombudsman, maybe if you have another role or if you've been in an area where government ombuds or advocate ombuds might act as advocates or might do investigations, organizational ombuds do not do investigations. I don't make decisions. I don't overturn decisions. People often ask what kind of power or authority do I have none but I do have the power and the authority to to know the school

[00:24:57] division very well to make connections within the division and to point people in the right direction to refer them to the appropriate processes and I don't maintain records provide legal advice there the ombuds role is protected under the Library of Virginia and when my cases are closed those notes that I take they get shredded and destroyed under that legal process and that's all outlined in my policy and regulation online. So like I said some people are like when should I call you and there's really no

[00:25:32] rules. People can reach out to me at any point in time. You can email me at ombuds at lcps.org. I have a web page that explains all of this. I have a form on there that you can fill out. People can call me directly. I do like people to know that the most you know if you don't want to create a digital trail or record then calling me is probably the best way but also through the let's talk form feature you can submit a question completely anonymously where I can engage back and forth and I have no idea who you are so there are multiple ways to reach me confidentially but if we do connect what you share with me will stay with me unless I have your permission to share

[00:26:09] otherwise. I'm also making sure that our family liaisons know and our community members know that if an individual might need support in another language as long as that information can get to me the name and the phone number and what language they need then I can call that individual back with the language line and serve them in whatever language is needed so some high level data I don't want to you know share too much because the board doesn't see it until next week but I did I set a

[00:26:43] goal for myself looking at other new ombuds offices last year and I set a goal for 150 visitors last year, I connected with 207, I'm calling them total contacts, because sometimes I would help groups of people. So it was actually 232 constituents served, and it was pretty even split all year long between family cases and employee cases. I did support two students and then a couple of community members that reached out about specific concerns. Of those 207 contacts, most of them were complete cases, but sometimes people would just ask a question or drop me a line

[00:27:20] or CC me on something, and I didn't connect with them or have a conversation with them or go back and forth with them, so I called those quick inquiries, and then the rest of them were complete cases. My goal this year is to hopefully reach 250 cases, 300 cases, and by sharing continuously and repeatedly throughout the year.

[00:27:40] So you can be a part of that and go back to your colleagues, your constituencies, your family, your friends, and let them know that I am a resource that they can access and utilize. So if you do want a little more information, there's some videos from last year and some resources.

[00:27:58] My policy's connected. My annual report will all be located at lcps.org slash ombuds. And I believe I have a couple of minutes if anybody has any questions or comments. Yes, ma'am. Okay.

[00:28:20] Sorry. Thank you. if we were talking to parents or families and letting them know that they can contact you, is there a typical turnaround time we might offer them? Does it take a few weeks, a couple days? Oh, no, like usually a few hours. Okay. I'm really, my, and I understand that some of the points of frustration why people come to me is because of some type of a communication lag, breakdown, and that looks different for every person.

[00:28:45] But I will always get back within 24 hours and then try to set up that initial conversation, then navigating schedules, but I will at least make that initial contact back out within one business day. So if we get something late on a Friday, I'll return it on a Monday, and then we set up a time to speak. And I can usually get to individuals within 48 hours, but sometimes our schedules are a little bit tricky, but they will get a return from me within a business day.

[00:29:13] You're welcome. Yes, ma'am. Maybe try the other one. You just turn it around. There you go. Okay. So just to clarify, is communication with you exempt from FOIA then or not?

[00:29:37] So my records, they are destroyed at the end of each month for open cases. So you could FOIA it, but it would not be there. Okay. So, yeah. And I really don't keep a lot of records. I jot a couple of high-level notes just to keep me straight when I have a bunch of cases going on at one time.

[00:29:55] But I don't create files, I don't have records that are going, it's not part of a student record, and that's all within those ombuds principles. Okay, thank you. Okay, you're welcome. Hi, are you able to share an example of an inquiry that came and how you dealt with it?

[00:30:16] Of like a, just a general example of a case? Yes, yes. Okay, so for example, I had a parent who was going through a process, and they felt that their student was not given adequate opportunity to qualify for the thing that they were seeking.

[00:30:37] And so I was able to connect with the supervisor for that office to make sure I understood and wasn't giving any wrong information what that process looks like. And in having that conversation, while the school followed the process that they were supposed to follow, we determined that the parent maybe didn't have the best understanding about a key component that kept their student from taking a test that might have given them the information that they needed to do the thing they wanted to do.

[00:31:05] So in having that conversation, they were able to connect back with that parent, revisit the process, understand where the lack of clarity was, then give them the opportunity to kind of re-engage with the process. And ultimately, they got what they were looking for.

[00:31:22] You're welcome. Any other questions? I was just curious in the language on what does ombuds do where it says visitors.

[00:31:39] Why does it say visitors and not parents? Because I serve all, I serve employees, I serve students, I serve community members and parents. So anybody who contacts me, we didn't want to call them like cases or clients because we felt that that was a little sterile.

[00:31:55] So the industry term is visitors. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Well, I am available. I look forward to hearing from you. And please share my information far and wide so that, you know, as, and I'm seeing an uptick already this year.

[00:32:17] I think I'm going to far surpass that 250 mark this year, and that's a good thing, and I want to keep continuing to build that and word of mouth and sharing my resources. And in the back, my bookmark is in the back above the table. You'll see my Office of the Ombuds little placard, and then there are bookmarks, so if you want to snag some of those, take them with you, you can hand them out.

[00:32:39] And if you take them all, that's fine. I will replenish them tomorrow. All right, thank you all very much. Thank you, Mrs. Williams. We really appreciate your time. Before our second presentation, I wanted to remind everyone of the LEAF feedback form.

[00:32:59] We use that form. If you provide questions, we take a look at those so that we can give those to our presenters so that they can help prepare for our meetings. So we didn't receive any comments or questions from members on the LEAF feedback form for these two presentations, so I just wanted to point that out.

[00:33:16] So even though the information that we're getting today is relevant for everyone, hear but we also want to make sure that if you do have questions that you do that in advance on the feedback form next we will have katie clark she is here with several members from the special programs available in lcps these programs are essential to know about at all levels so students know what is available as they head to and engage their high school pathways and i want to welcome

[00:33:46] mrs clark thank you for being here and your team good evening as it was just mentioned i'm katie Clark, supervisor of special programs, and we just want to thank you for giving us some time this evening to share some of the opportunities that are available to our students in LCPS. So this is our secondary programs agenda. Let you read that for just a second. And with that, I would like to

[00:34:23] introduce some of our guests that are here tonight. We have Mrs. Sharma, our health and medical science coordinator. Dr. O'Connor, our resource teacher, is not able to be here this evening, but she is on our team. We have Renee Dawson. She is the director of teaching and learning community connections and programs. We have Mr. Scavarch, our Loudoun Valley IB coordinator. Mr. Yoribari, our heritage IB coordinator. And then we have Mr. Bishop, our NJROTC, who is our CTE specialist. And our last guest we're going to introduce in a little bit, but I'll go ahead now, is Louisa Quintero, and she

[00:35:02] is our dual language immersion and is our elementary world language specialist. So with that, our programs are directly aligned with the strategic plan, specifically in alignment with Action 1.1 and Action 1.2. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to our health and medical science team to give you some information about our program. Thank you, Ms. Clark. Hi, everyone.

[00:35:32] I'm Vandana Sharma. I am the coordinator for Health and Medical Sciences Academy and I am super excited to be here and thank you for your time this evening. I am looking forward to talking to you a little bit about Health and Medical Sciences Academy and give you an overview and some logistics. So let's get started. So let's talk about the overview of Health and Medical Sciences Academy. It's a unique program dedicated to preparing our students for careers in rapidly evolving health and medical sciences.

[00:36:10] It's designed to provide our students with multiple pathways for success as they graduate from high school. The academy focuses on providing health science literacy to our students, paired with a curriculum that develops critical thinking skills, and along with that, provides them an opportunity to acquire industry credentials, so as our students leave high school, they are prepared and equipped to enter a highly skilled and highly in-demand workforce that is the health care right now.

[00:36:47] So HAMSci will be offered at two of our outstanding high schools starting next year, Briarwoods High School and Tuscarora High School. The academy will provide our students an opportunity to engage in a four-year program offered at one of these two sites.

[00:37:05] Like I said, the program begins next school year. This will not only increase access to our students, but also will promote collaboration. The expansion also allows our students to embark on this incredible educational journey where they will make meaningful impact as they enter into healthcare, and this could be locally or even beyond if that's where they choose to go.

[00:37:31] So let's talk about the timeline. It's starting next year. If you look at the timeline, our student opportunity portal opens on December 1st and it will close on January 31st, 2024. That's when the students will be able to express interest if that's where they want to go.

[00:37:51] Students will be informed by March 2024 and our first cohort will begin in fall of 2024. So by the time of the school year 27, 28, our first cohort of students will be seniors at that time at Briarwoods and Tuscarora High School.

[00:38:11] And by that time we will have fully implemented our HAMSci Academy. Let's talk about the career pathways or course pathways for our students who opt to go into Health and Medical Sciences Academy.

[00:38:27] So like I said, we offer unique opportunities to our students to engage in a four-year program. We will have specialty classes that will allow students to focus in on health and medical sciences, but at the same time, we will integrate these contents into their English, into their health and PE, into their sciences.

[00:38:48] So it will be fully integrated into their other classes as well. There are two potential pathways for our students if they choose health and medical sciences. The first pathway is a pure biomedical sciences field. So the students will take biomedical sciences courses throughout the four years in their high school.

[00:39:06] And the second pathway is language of medicine. This is a blend of biomedical sciences. So the first two years, ninth and tenth grade, they will take biomedical science courses. And in the junior and senior year, they will take specialty classes and languages of medicine, which basically will focus on administrative and management practices.

[00:39:29] So one thing that is super excited about both of these pathways, regardless of what they pick, is the students will get to experience work-based learning experiences. And it will look different for each year. For example, for a ninth grader, that would be in the form of a mentorship.

[00:39:47] For a tenth grader, it would be service learning. Our juniors and seniors will experience clinical experiences, and that could be in the form of externships and internships. we are super excited about this program. It's a robust curriculum and this will help our students get ready as they exit high school and ready to join workforce if that's where they want to go.

[00:40:11] So now I will pass it on to Ms. Dawson and she will talk about the focus. So good evening everyone. I'm very excited to share with you all about the Health and Medical Sciences Academy. I will say that this was a partnership with business and industry in terms of developing this academy and what it might look like so there are three focus areas that we will have with our academy and the first focus area is around patient care and talking with industry partners we knew that patient care was really at the center of the work that we wanted to do

[00:40:48] so the academies are centered around patient care curriculum and potential post-secondary opportunities in connecting with our industry partners in the health care field as well as higher education, patient care or soft skills were really recommended as competencies or skills to be included while developing our curriculum and learning experiences for our HamSci students. Many of these competencies are actually aligned with the profile of a graduate for LCPS. Critical thinking, collaboration, communication, healthcare knowledge that's

[00:41:25] around healthcare language and terms, contribution to the team dynamic in patient care, as well as creative problem solving all support the overall experience for patient care in the HamSci Academy. When we hosted an industry partner roundtable last spring, that was one of the areas of feedback that industry partners gave us from the healthcare industry and higher education. Could we please make sure that some of those soft skills and competencies were included in any kind of programming that we would have? These competencies or skills will be embedded explicitly in the

[00:42:00] design of our programming. The curriculum will include elements of anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, medical interventions, and be supported with industry credentials. We are very fortunate that our resource teacher, Dr. Jane O'Connor, is actually an orthopedic surgeon and a plastic surgeon. So she is working to develop this curriculum alongside our professional learning team and our content offices to make sure that this curriculum is robust and relevant for what the next steps might be, whether that is going directly into workforce or into higher education.

[00:42:37] And lastly, the HAMPSAI Academy is designed to provide our students with a pathway to enrollment in either a two- or four-year college, employment directly into the workforce, and also position our students for military enlistment should they choose that route as well. HAMPSAI is designed to provide access and opportunity to each of these possibilities for post-secondary endeavors.

[00:43:01] Thank you. And at this time, I'm going to turn it over to the LCPS pre-IB team.

[00:43:15] All right, folks. Good evening. So I'm going to talk a little bit about another wonderful special program and opportunity that students are going to have. The entry point, I think, for all of our programs is the ninth grade. So one of the programs that they can, that students will be able to take advantage of is the IB diploma program.

[00:43:37] It's one of four programs that the International Baccalaureate offers, and it is their signature program. The diploma program that's represented in this model that you see up above me, is basically, it highlights all of the different requirements involved in the diploma, in getting an IB diploma.

[00:44:01] You have to take basically six advanced level classes in the content area, they span the content area. You have to do a seventh theory of knowledge class. You have to write an extended essay and you have to extend your learning into the community through creativity, activity and service hours.

[00:44:21] At the heart of all of IB's programs and what it offers and what it's committed to is basically education for a better world. They are very much committed to increasing global awareness, multilingualism, and preparing students to enter a global market force.

[00:44:43] So in terms of the timeline, last year we spent the year growing our capacity, sending teachers to workshops and developing outlines while working within our CLTs to prepare ourselves for this rollout of the IB program.

[00:45:01] The way it's being rolled out at both Loudoun Valley and at Heritage is that this opportunity is available to all the students at Heritage with so many slots open to students that are coming outside of the boundary. This year, teachers are writing curriculum as we prepare to leave the authorization phase behind us and to become full IB World Schools.

[00:45:28] year will be the first year that we offer IB classes and then hopefully in the 25-26 year we will have our first graduating IB class. So at the heart of I said in order to fulfill that aim of education for a better world the IB developed the learner profile. The learner profile I think can be grouped into basically two different buckets. One is very content heavy obviously as you have to complete six different content area courses that carry the same weight as AP classes

[00:46:06] and the same probability of giving you college credit. So you see things like inquirer, knowledgeable, thinker, communicator that are very much linked to the content area, but you also see this other holistic element that the IB diploma offers, which is this commitment to character building and to developing the whole child, right, and what they have to offer. To that end, and to ensuring that students get feedback and that there

[00:46:39] is reflection and growth to become the leaders that they can be and to really prepare them to be able to motivate people, to motivate others, and to learn about themselves and how they prefer to learn as well, the IB developed the approaches to learning. Basically, these are deliberate strategies, skills, and attitudes to promote global engagement, multilingualism, and intercultural understanding. These strategies, skills, and attitudes line up with the skills that employers

[00:47:14] are seeking as well. And through the IB has arrived at these approaches to learning and to teaching through various studies about what industry is looking for and what they would Like, not just if students decide to go into the workforce immediately, but also if they are going on into college.

[00:47:39] Thank you, Mr. Uribari. So, my name is Michael Skavarch, and I'm the IB coordinator for Loudoun Valley High School, and I'm going to pick up right where Mr. Uribari left off and talk about how we make good on getting those skills into our students' minds, right?

[00:48:01] How do we develop? How do we guide these skills? And the way that we do that is through the approaches to teaching. The first one being inquiry, where questions lead the way. So in all IB coursework, questions frame the beginning of what we do, and they guide us through the learning experiences as we move forward.

[00:48:20] Second, you'll see based in conceptual understanding. So this is the idea that IB courses tend to break the mold of individual disciplines and help students to see a broader context. So see the mathematics, see the history, see the science in anything that you do.

[00:48:41] We follow that up with helping students develop local and global context. So we start out first with helping students see themselves as community members here locally and recognize that here as a local community member, you participate as a global citizen as well.

[00:48:58] So going and shifting between those perspectives, both where am I here and also where am I in the world. Furthermore, we focus on teamwork and collaboration, because at the heart of the International Baccalaureate is the concept that we can do more together than we can do as individuals.

[00:49:18] We follow that up by recognizing that IB, International Baccalaureate, being a series of college-level coursework is rigorous. It's going to be challenging for students, and we ensure that stepping stones are set up so that every student has access and can meet that challenge where they need to in order to find success. Finally, we utilize formative and summative assessments through the iterative teaching process. And when I say that, it means that we make sure that we understand what students know or are struggling with and use that data to inform our instruction

[00:49:53] on a regular basis. These concepts are how we get at the learning skills previously discussed. So then, what exactly is the International Baccalaureate? So I want to describe two ways that students who attend our program can engage in the International Baccalaureate.

[00:50:10] The first is through what is known as the IBDP or the Diploma Program. That is very specifically a student who has said, "All right, I'm all in. I would like to sign up for a series of college-level courses my 11th and 12th grade year and essentially take a full load of IB courses."

[00:50:30] That'll mean six content area courses that they take, noticing that when we say a course, a course that spans two years to create that continuity of learning. And a seventh course called Theory of Knowledge, which is an interesting course that the best way I've had it described to me is an inquiry into what knowledge and knowing is across all disciplines. So it's a really fantastic course that seeks to reach into all of the other six areas, pull in different context and help people see the conceptual understandings as they're

[00:51:05] being built. Furthermore, outside of those courses but supported by those courses are two additional experiences. A student who's part of a diploma program will complete an extended essay where they do a large research paper devoted and and focused on an area of their choosing. So they get to choose a passion project and write a very in-depth college-level paper on it.

[00:51:29] Lastly, you'll see the Creativity, Activity, and Service Project, which in its essence is a way to engage and challenge students to build themselves in areas outside of academics specifically, so that they can build themselves as a well-rounded student and find balance in what they're doing and in their lives.

[00:51:52] So that's way one. That's all in the IB Diploma Program candidate. Also, any student at Loudoun Valley or Heritage has access to be a course candidate, and that simply means taking individual courses, one, two, three or more, IB courses that fit their schedule and their interest, and they can still assess at the end of that two year sequence to receive college credit in that course as they move forward.

[00:52:20] So speaking to that aspect of college credit, it's important to note that IB, the score on your final exam, how you can earn college credit is that score is taken to a college or university, much like the advanced placement, and you take that score to that college and university and then they award the credit.

[00:52:39] So it's very important that students make sure that that communication occurs and connects with their counselors. Lastly, I will say that colleges and universities locally, throughout the nation, and globally respect the international baccalaureate and recognize its coursework.

[00:52:57] And the reason that they do that is because they know that these students coming in with this coursework have the skills necessary to be successful in their classes. Finally, I just want to point out some resources that we have.

[00:53:12] We do have some flyers in the back that have information that will be interested to parents. And we want to identify that there are two dates coming up where you can get a much more in-depth look about what the International Baccalaureate program is all about. There is an informational session November 28th from 6 to 7 at Heritage High School and an informational session December 5th from 6:30 to 7:30 at Loudoun Valley High School.

[00:53:41] And we're very excited for you to come out and to talk about these amazing programs. Once again, I'm Michael Skavarch from Loudoun Valley High School. Please reach out with any questions you might have. We're happy to take them. Thank you.

[00:53:58] We're just going to transition for these two programs really quickly, and then we'll turn it over to NJROTC, but just some logistics about those two programs because they are very similar. Again, it's been mentioned, but students would show interest in these two programs starting on December 1st in Student Opportunities, which is in LCPS GO.

[00:54:18] We are doing middle school visits. We visited Riverbend Middle School this morning. After our visit that afternoon, CCO does send out a communication to the parents with links to all of our websites. So that is how we are informing all of our eighth grade students of all of these opportunities.

[00:54:37] The research office will run a lottery in February timeframe, and students will be notified in March. We did kind of got all of our programs in line this year, so all students will find out at the same time if they got into multiple programs.

[00:54:54] So that's very important. Students can show interest or apply to multiple programs. So we have aligned all of them, including academies. The only one that would not be in a line with us is TJ in Fairfax County. So all the other programs, students will find out on the same date whether they got offered a seat in the program or academy and be able to make an informed decision on which one they would like to attend or which ones they are on a wait list for.

[00:55:23] With that, I just want to put these up here. We do have these in the back as well, but our schools are assigned specific schools based off of transportation clusters and times to get there. a lot of thought and effort went into these so briar woods high school you can see there a list of schools high schools that would attend briar woods if they want to attend this program and same thing for tuscarora high school and same thing for the lcps pre-ib feeder schools we have a list of high schools that would feed into heritage high school and then there you'll see

[00:56:00] we have our list for loudon valley high school lcps transportation is available for students but i want to make sure everyone understands, it's from Hub Stop locations. The Hub Stop locations are elementary, middle, or high school. They are LCPS schools, and parents and guardians are responsible for getting their child or children to and from the Hub Stop locations in the mornings and afternoons. So when students are offered a seat in the program, parents receive a permission click to accept that after the student accepts. The parents are notified, and that is where you're

[00:56:37] able to opt your child in for that hub stop location if that is something that is needed. And with that, I am going to turn it over to Mr. Bishop to talk about the Navy JROTC program. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you about the Naval JROTC program. Looking at the room, I try to read the room, and what I see is that most of you have no idea what happened in 1964. For those of us who are around and having a big time back in those days. The Beatles came to America, and public law established a Naval

[00:57:15] Junior ROTC program under Title 10 of the U.S. Code Chapter 102. Loudoun County has not had a Naval Junior ROTC program that long, only since 2009. However, it's built on four pillars. You ready? All right, leadership, character, we want you to have it, not become one, honor, and service.

[00:57:43] Now, this program is not designed as a military recruitment tool whatsoever. It never was designed that way. What it's designed to do is develop leadership and help young people become self-disciplined, if you will.

[00:58:00] It's a program that is led by Captain Bill Johns over at Loudoun County. And Loudoun County High School is the only junior ROTC program in the county. Hopefully, at some point, we'll be able to enhance that number. But as it stands right now, they've got it.

[00:58:18] So Captain Johns has Gunnery Sergeant Gatins and Senior Chief Fitch, and they have about 200 kids in the program. 60% of those kids will go through all four years. If you're selected, as the other programs will tell you, that the student's going to become a member of Loudoun County High School, so they're going to do the transportation thing.

[00:58:47] There's no requirement that says they have to stay. If they don't like it, they do have to adhere to personal grooming standards. They have to be able to participate in the physical education program. There are a lot of opportunities like orienteering robotics.

[00:59:05] They do Sea Perch, color guards, and that's where a lot of the service comes in because you're going to do a lot of work maybe supporting the booster club and cleaning up and taking care of things around the school and helping out with events just like this as far as setting up tables and clearing things around.

[00:59:26] Am I supposed to be doing this? Oh, good. Okay, so 8th grade students, public, private, homeschooled. You'll become a full-time student at Loudoun County for four years. And then here's the key is only 25 students total outside of the Loudoun County High School system, feeder system, are selected.

[00:59:50] So same dates apply, December 1st through January 31st. What I would like to say to any of you, if you're going to talk to kids or anyone about this, is that you have them do their application and be ready to go by Thanksgiving, right?

[01:00:07] Get there the firstest with the mostest. That way they don't have to worry about Thanksgiving. They can watch the Cowboys and the Lions play football or whatever you guys do at your house and eat turkey and just have a good time and relax. And they've got about a month or two where they don't have to do anything except just get ready.

[01:00:28] Once the applications are in, there's going to be an admissions committee, if you will, and then they'll do interviews. After those interviews, kids will be offered a spot or they can be put on a wait list. The ROTC program falls under CTE, so they will have competency-based instruction.

[01:00:51] They're going to be able to participate in the CTSOs in the school, whether that's SkillsUSA or Technology Student Association, FCCLA, doesn't matter. They can do all of that. They'll have an opportunity to earn industry credentials and then have some work-based learning experiences on top of all of the other good things they're going to do.

[01:01:14] Transportation provided to students, accepted into the program. Thank you very much. I hope I did not take up too much of your time. Up on the screen is their contact information.

[01:01:31] We also have information at the back. I know we are running low on time, so I'm going to turn it over quickly to our coordinator for our dual language immersion program just to give you a little information about this program at our elementary schools. Good evening.

[01:01:50] My name is Louisa Quintero, and I am the World Language Specialist in charge of doing this DLI program. It's a great opportunity for children in the elementary schools. Our dual language immersion program is currently at two schools, two sites, Potomac Elementary School and Sanders Corner Elementary School.

[01:02:07] The goals for this program are to become students to have academic achievement, high academic achievement, bilingual, become bilingual, and biliterate, meaning they're going to speak, but they're also going to read and write in a second language. And build that cultural competence as well.

[01:02:25] The LCPS model is a 50-50 model, which means the children are half of the day learning one language and half of the day learning a different language. English and Spanish is the case for this program. The model begins in kindergarten and progresses through grades K through 5.

[01:02:42] It is a two-way immersion program or dual language, which means there's a balance of language. Some of the students speak only Spanish and some of them only speak English. they mix together to sell as role models for each other in the language and they're so cute that it's incredible. The interest in the DLI program is open to all kindergartners and it's provided at selected schools like I said before. The parents get to choose what school they would like to show interest for. The seats are limited, therefore there is a lottery that is held for those who complete the DLI lottery registration form before the deadline and then a

[01:03:20] a wait list is established after that. There are 50 spots at one school and 50 spots at the other. 25 come from the outside of the school for each of those, so that way everyone from the county gets a chance to go in. Transportation is not available for this program, so students who are selected in the lottery, parents are responsible for taking them and picking them up from their school. Parents and guardians from the out of zone are responsible for this.

[01:03:52] And then you can check out our website just to get more information. We do have community information sessions that I would love for you guys to attend to get more information and learn more about the program and how it works. And we have our flyers back there. So with that, here's my contact information.

[01:04:11] And if you have any questions. I'm just wondering, is it Spanish-English or is it other languages besides Spanish?

[01:04:32] Currently, it's only Spanish-English. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Does the student have to begin the program at the kindergarten level, or could it begin any grade period between kindergarten and fifth?

[01:04:54] You are learning language through content, so depending on the student's ability to speak the second language, they can enter later. But however, it is recommended to start in kindergarten, just because they are learning the content through a second language. And I'll just, I'll add to that, we will be running a first grade lottery for any open seats.

[01:05:16] So if any kindergartners move or have left the program, we don't anticipate a lot of that, but there will be an opportunity for parents that either didn't get in during kindergarten or moved to the area, they would be able to register or show interest in that first grade lottery for this year as well.

[01:05:33] So we'll be running both a kindergarten and first grade lottery. And with that, I know there's probably other questions. I know I've been getting, I think we're past our time, but we are going to stay in the back. We have flyers and information. We can answer questions if you have any about a specific program.

[01:05:50] I do just want to make two clarifications. One is transportation for the health and medical science. I just want to make sure I'm clear. Obviously, that's budget pending, so I just want to make sure. I don't anticipate, hopefully, any issues with that, but I just want to make sure that that's clear for the Hub Stop locations.

[01:06:07] And then secondly, if students are at Valley or Heritage in the IB program, they do not have to take part in that program but they do have the ability since they're at those schools to participate in the program if they choose so there's no requirement that they take an IB course but they do have the ability to participate in that so I just wanted to make sure those two things were clear we'll stay in the back I believe it's I don't want to take over but a five minute break is that still happening okay all right a working break but we'll be in the back with our information and I'll stay until the conclusion of the evening so if you want to pick up any

[01:06:42] information will be there thank you guys for your time thank you special programs we appreciate you taking the time to come out and talk to us about all these wonderful programs we are going to pivot a little bit we're going to have a working break because we want you to have the opportunity if you have any questions you can talk to any of the special programs representatives in the back and there's some information we are going to do a small activity because we want to set the stage and make sure that we have our topics for agendas moving forward and we're able to get the speakers that will meet the topic areas that we decide on.

[01:07:21] So Erica is going to walk us through the activity. While we're doing this activity, please feel free to go back to the table and ask questions and pick up any materials that you may are interested in. So I'll pass it to you, Erica. Hello there.

[01:07:39] So during our August meeting, we shared topics that we thought were essential to bring to the group. And since then, we have doubled the size of the representation here, and we wanted to provide an opportunity to you to take this list that we came up with in August, add, delete, clarify.

[01:08:06] So we're going to take seven minutes to get at our tables, talk about those issues, also come up with three to five kind of hot topics. You'll see on the paper that there's a list of issues that you'd like to discuss and then some hot topics. We'd like some clarification like on, yes. Oh, okay.

[01:08:39] That's okay. So we're going to have seven minutes to do this. And please make sure that when you're writing down what you would like to discuss, that you're thinking at the division level or the planning district, which is your tables, not for your individual school or particular concerns that you have as a member. Those can be directed towards your school or

[01:09:12] dealt with kind of on a more individual basis. So let's get started. Thank you. Let me, I'm sorry, give one example. So we have school security up here twice. We wanted to know, does that mean, or school safety very specific to events or in general so we just want to know what you guys

[01:09:39] would like to hear about thanks if you could start thinking about what your top items are

[01:16:16] if you haven't already encircle bold star whatever it is as you're jotting down we have about two more minutes

[01:21:38] Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for discussing these topics.

[01:22:00] We are going to collect them, if you wouldn't mind passing them to the end of the table. the next session we will be compiling them and taking a further look uh thank you everyone for

[01:22:34] participating in that activity can we bring everyone back together real quickly and maybe get out a few minutes early all right so thank you for taking the time to participate this activity Okay, so hopefully you guys had a fruitful conversation.

[01:23:03] We will take your feedback, and that will help to inform building agendas. Again, please, please, please fill out the feedback forms prior to the meeting. Once you see the agenda, that helps, again, our presenters. If there are questions you have, they can address it within the presentation, which will really make our time a little bit more effective if you have questions.

[01:23:26] our next meeting is set for november 20th here in this room as a reminder november's meeting will be the last meeting until february 2024 that's pretty unbelievable after our winter break and the school board's organizational meeting in january as always thank you for your participation this evening and we hope you have a safe trip home if you have any questions please let us know again please fill out the feedback form and i hope you have a wonderful evening and our meeting is adjourned.

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