Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, 2nd Tuesday School Board Meeting and Public Hearing on Elementary School Attendance Zones, Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Date: Tuesday, November 14, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 7h 8m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/884497340?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] 102 remote participation I have been notified that Denise Corbo would like to remotely participate in tonight's school board meeting. Ms. Corbo could you please state your location whether this is a for a medical or personal matter and if anyone is present with you at your location. Thank you I'm home I'm alone and I'm asking for remote participation due to a health condition and medical disability. This time I will entertain a motion that Ms. Corbo's remote participation for a medical matter be granted. So moved. Moved by Ms. Polifko. Is there a second? That motion will

[00:00:38] fail for lack of a second. Ms. Corbo, do you have any other requests related to remote participation that you'd like to make at this time? I'd like to ask for a personal exemption. At this time, I will entertain a motion that Ms. Corbo's request to participate remotely for a personal reason be granted. So moved. Moved by Mr. Morse. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Ms. Polifko.

[00:01:02] Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we'll place the matter to a vote. Clerk, if you could open up the voting board. And board members, could you record your vote at this time? And please close the board and display the vote.

[00:01:24] That motion will pass 3-4 with Sorotkin and Mehedavi opposed and Ogadegbe, Beatty, Reeser, and Corbo absent for the vote.

[00:01:42] Ms. Corbo, you've been admitted into the meeting. Thank you. and uh according to the agenda it it indicates that uh miss reaser is also requesting remote participation but she did follow up with me after that and let me know that she would not unfortunately not be able to attend the meeting tonight with that we'll move to item two on the agenda the approval of the consent agenda is there a motion mr mehedvi yes chair i move that this board approved the agenda posted in the consent agenda on the board docs is there a second second

[00:02:17] seconded by mr morris any discussion seeing none we'll place the matter to a vote clerk if you could please open the voting board at this time mr oh i'm sorry did you have your hand up i apologize miss polifka thank you mr chair uh on the consent agenda this evening is a personnel action item list and i wanted to briefly uh for the public i wanted to ask dr spence if you could please describe the position of the director of sustainability and what it entails yes ma'am give

[00:02:55] give me just a moment i'm going to need to pull something up thank you thank you for the question so the director of sustainability position is responsible for the development and execution of broad-based division-wide strategic energy and sustainability master plan initiatives the role will be part of the role will be to develop programs policies and enthusiasm

[00:03:32] toward acceptance and implementation of lcps energy and sustainability efforts that enhance student and staff environment and performance. The programs that this position will support include those which support the long-term interest of LCPS board and helping LCPS meet and exceed Commonwealth of Virginia supported green initiatives including executive orders, initiatives from the Metro Washington Council of Governments, Loudoun County, and other entities.

[00:04:04] The person will be expected to develop and implement strategies to address environmental concerns and programs including energy and use resource conservation, reduction of LCPS's carbon footprint, looking at our recycling program, looking at pollution reduction, indoor air quality and waste elimination. They will be asked to develop strategic plan for energy and sustainability, annual and long-term performance measures and budgets to accomplish those goals.

[00:04:31] They will also be asked to research environmental sustainability issues and understand stakeholder interests in those issues. They will be asked to research and develop proposals for sustainability related projects and grants, considering factors such as cost effectiveness, technical feasibility, and integration with other initiatives. They'll be asked to establish and maintain program documents, schedules, and priorities, communicate with administrative, internal, and external agencies, and develop and maintain sustainability marketing and outreach programs, both for programs and events as well as for students as they look at curricular initiatives around

[00:05:07] sustainability and how those might connect to the programs that I've mentioned as well as the facilities development projects in which we are engaged. Thank you for that overview Dr. Spence if you don't mind me asking one further question I would like to hear your feedback briefly on how this position will improve the academic outcomes for students and student achievement and how that might be measured objectively. Sure I think from the academic perspective so one of the goals for

[00:05:45] this position is to engage so there's a there's a conversation and sustainable practices around something called the triple bottom line so the triple bottom line is environmental social and economic issues related to sustainable practices one of our goals inside of our curriculum working with a coalition of environmental educators and then just looking at the state standards around sustainable practices is that students understand how those three pieces of the triple bottom line interact with one another when they consider sustainable practices across our content areas. So there are curricular components to

[00:06:22] sustainable practices that we do talk to students about. The importance of sustainable practices from certainly from an environmental lens in classes like environmental science, AP environmental science. Also from an economic lens as we think about for example how energy management programs can reduce our overall costs as we build new facilities and certainly from a social lens as we think about the impact of the environment on things like for example government policy and so I don't know that you'd have a measurable impact related to how this person will work with across our content teams to integrate sustainable practices thinking into

[00:07:01] our curriculum and as I was giving you the overview I also think it's important to note that a lot of what we're talking about is the learned environment and the built environment There is some significant research to suggest that the built environment does have an impact on academic achievement.

[00:07:18] I'm not confident that I could tonight tell you this is how we're going to measure that academic achievement based on energy management behaviors. I'm also not sure I could tell you that the intention of the position was to improve academic achievement. Everything that I just outlined for you was really more about improving the built environment, improving our approach to sustainable practices, and energy management.

[00:07:42] Thank you, Dr. Spence. Board members, I will not be supporting the consent agenda this evening. Thank you. Is there any further discussion on the consent agenda? Seeing none, we'll continue on with the vote. Board members, if you already voted prior and want to change your vote, you can do that just by pressing another button.

[00:08:03] Otherwise, your vote should still be recorded from before. So one last opportunity to record your vote for approval of the consent agenda. And Ms. Corbo, what is your vote? I'll abstain. Thank you. Thank you. Claire, could you please record an abstention for Ms. Corbo?

[00:08:20] And, clerk, could you please close the board and display the vote? That motion will pass 5-1-1-2, with Polifco opposed, Corbo abstaining, and Okedegbe and Reeser absent for the vote.

[00:08:47] With that, we'll move on to item three on our agenda, which is our advisory committee update from the Special Education Advisory Committee. Ms. Crotty. Good evening, Dr. Spence, Chair Sorotkin, and fellow school board members.

[00:09:09] My name is Liz Crotty and I am the Special Education Advisory Committee Chair. Thank you for your time you've given to the community this year and we wish you all the very best. SEAC is looking forward to meeting with the incoming school board members. Next slide.

[00:09:27] Our SEAC leadership this year includes our Vice Chair of Planning, Jennifer DiDonato, Vice Chair of Membership, Carla Sola, Vice Chair of Communications, Shanaz Khan, Our secretary is Catherine Rosenbrook, and our past chair is Sharon Trofe.

[00:09:44] Our LCPS staff liaison is our director of special education, Dr. Paige Carter. Our school board liaison is Tiffany Polifko, and our alternate is Erica Ogadegby. Next slide, please. CIAC is unique in that our existence is mandated by Virginia regulation.

[00:10:04] Specific roles that we are given are to advise the local school division of needs, participate in the development of priorities and strategies and assist the local school division in interpreting plans to the community for meeting the needs of students with disabilities and tonight serves as a component of our periodic reports and recommendations that are transmitted to the school board I would like to highlight item 5 since that has been a topic of conversation with the school board we are to review the policies and procedures for the provision of special education and related services prior to submission to

[00:10:41] the local school board. Next slide. I would like to begin our report with some commendations. We are very appreciative of the positive relationship that we have enjoyed this past year with Miss Tedra Richardson, Dr. Paige Carter, Miss Nakia Purnell, and the Office of Special Education staff. They have been very supportive of SEAC and given collaborative opportunities where SEAC community members are able to have their voices heard and valuable input and provide a valuable input I'd like to thank our school board liaison miss Tiffany Polifco for her passion and advocacy for SEAC our meetings this

[00:11:19] year have been well attended with lively comment and debate on policy recommendations we've had and will continue to have speakers from the school district presenting some topics that are discussed in our subcommittees Next slide. We currently have 18 SEAC members with several applicants who are waiting to meet our meeting requirement.

[00:11:41] We have 72 of our schools with PTA and PTO representatives, but would love to get to 100% representation. Our representatives take information from our meetings back to their school communities, but also serve as a method of gathering information from our school communities on areas of concern or areas to celebrate.

[00:12:02] Our SEAC awards ceremony was on June 6th. We honored 116 members of our community for their outstanding efforts in special education and we are inspired and truly grateful for these teachers, administrators, students, parents, and community members who go above and beyond for our students with disabilities.

[00:12:24] One highlight of the evening was honoring John Costello, a broad run, and the adapted PE teachers for their creation of Adapted Field Days, which provide an incredible sense of accomplishment for our students with disabilities. I wish you could all see the immense pride that exudes from the students at the end of the day when they receive their medals.

[00:12:45] These are beautiful events that showcase our school district's values of inclusion and valuing and celebrating each student. The data from our 22-23 CX survey is ready to be reviewed, and we should have the results available by our spring presentation to the school board.

[00:13:04] Next slide. Coming into our 24-25 budget cycle, SEAC remains concerned with the high number of vacancies in our special education teacher and teacher assistant positions. There are only a couple related service provider positions open, but because of the cuts made to those positions last year, along with the high caseloads per position, we are concerned about the impact on other related service providers and our student population.

[00:13:33] Vacancies and cut positions put additional strain on our staff and lead us to be very concerned about the retention of these highly valued educators and professionals. SEAC supports the need for our teacher assistants and substitutes to receive special education training before they are placed in our classrooms.

[00:13:53] Transition services is an area that continues to be of significant concern to SEAC, to the SEAC community, and I will touch on this more when I speak about our subcommittee work. Tonight, I want to take the bulk of my time to share some highlights on what our subcommittees are working on.

[00:14:10] The majority of SEAC work takes place within our subcommittees. Next slide. Margaret Osbury is our staff liaison for our Literacy and Math subcommittee. Beginning last year and into this year, she has held quarterly work sessions in addition to our monthly meetings to explore topics related to specialized instruction of literacy and math and to get feedback from our SEAC community.

[00:14:36] have been guests brought in from the department of instruction which have been so helpful because of the interconnectedness of special education and general education these have been wonderful collaborative sessions and are a model to be emulated next slide our meaningful inclusion subcommittee looks for ways that we can enhance and create opportunities for our students with disabilities to be meaningfully included in their school communities nikia pernell and chris bouquet our staff liaisons. One topic we would like to highlight is our LCPS playground

[00:15:13] review. SEAC members gathered data on playgrounds at 47 of our schools. A full report and SEAC recommendations will be forthcoming but we would like to encourage the school board to continue to fund and expand inclusive playgrounds and collaborate with the Office of Special Education to prioritize schools with the greatest need. This is an area that we have heard a lot of interest and compassion from the community and could also serve as a way to provide access and inclusion to areas of the county where no inclusive public playground option exists next slide our policy

[00:15:52] and compliance subcommittee has reviewed 34 policies so far this year and provided feedback which was voted on and approved by our membership on 15 policies we are appreciative of the school board's thoughtful consideration of our recommendations as well as dr smith's collaborative approach we have begun initial discussions on our budget recommendations after an initial presentation to our members we will now be meeting with staff to collaborate and then bring back revised budget recommendations to our membership to vote on next slide jenna

[00:16:29] arndt is our staff liaison for transition lately we've been having some difficult conversations regarding transition and in particular we would like to share a possible action item for the school board to consider at the Academies of Loudoun.

[00:16:45] Transition begins when a student turns 14 years old and continues until they graduate or the year they turn 21. Transition can mean supporting students in identifying a path to college or straight to the workforce.

[00:17:01] Some of our students require very explicit instruction. This is extremely important for the board to consider because for a portion of our students with disabilities, this is their best and possibly only opportunity to get job training that will lead to independence and a fulfilling adulthood.

[00:17:20] 90% of adults with intellectual disabilities are unemployed, and we need to do everything we can as a district to combat that truly horrible statistic. SEAC has received feedback for years from the community through our SEAC survey that transition services, in particular for our adult students, are not meeting student need.

[00:17:41] in 21 to 22 44 percent of parents were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with transition services for our adult students and 50 percent did not feel their children were prepared after leaving high school lcps is fortunate to have an incredible number of business partners 833 were reported in the last school board presentation but when it comes to our cast programs which is one example of a transition program we have just 34 over half of which are

[00:18:20] retail and restaurants we need to be teaching our students skills that will help them reach their full potential and achieve their dreams which is the vision so beautifully stated in our lcps strategic plan in order to do this we need to have opportunities for our students in a variety of fields teaching them a variety of job skills we already have the extensive business relationships within lcps now we just need to expand our focus to include this vulnerable but

[00:18:55] very hard working population we also need to ensure that we are not blocking students who need vocational job skills from the academies of loud and mata program due to admissions requirements our action item for you this evening is to drop the algebra sol and psat requirement at mata to ensure that students who need to have access to vocational programs do if there are programs that require those prerequisites due to coursework make that determination on a program by program

[00:19:28] basis because of the long-term nature of these issues as well as the significant feedback we've received from the community we will be putting together a report to document transition concerns and SIAC recommendations next slide our next presentation at our December 6th meeting will focus on transition I would also like to highlight two external presentations that will take place in January which would be excellent learning opportunities for incoming school board members on January 10th at 6:00 p.m. the role of SIAC will be

[00:20:05] presented by Chiquita Seaborn from the VDOE. On January 16th at 6 p.m., we will have a virtual presentation on Virginia FOIA, which will be presented by Alan Gerhardt from the Virginia FOIA Council. Next slide. Thank you. That concludes my report, and I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Ms. Crowdy, thank you for that comprehensive report on SEAC's activities over the past year and past few months. Board members, do you have any questions for Ms. Crowdy or for SIAC. Ms. Polipko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Crotty, thank you so much for that presentation

[00:20:43] this evening. I do have a few questions for probably just more for the audience that it's not necessarily that I don't already know the answer because we've talked about this a lot within the committee, but I think it would be helpful for people to hear what specifically it is about the transition services that we have right now in place that parents are dissatisfied with. Are you able to expand on that a little bit for us? Sure. I think it's in part The range of job opportunities, you know, and I think our business partners kind of speaks to that.

[00:21:16] A lot of them are either retail establishments or restaurants, which lead to kind of a very narrow set of skills, you know. So a lot of something I learned recently was called the four F's when it comes to jobs for students with disabilities.

[00:21:34] Let me see if I can get them all. It's flowers, filth, folding, and oh gosh, what's the other? But anyway, it's food. There we go. It's food. So those are the kinds of jobs that are often thought about for our students with disabilities without acknowledging the full range of their abilities.

[00:21:57] And what parents want to see is that their kids actually have opportunities to follow whatever career path they're interested maybe to a different level than some students would go for but using their gifts and their abilities to be able to have opportunities the other thing that comes up a lot is related to our independent living labs and the fact that as part of this transition program students need to learn those independent living skills and that's part

[00:22:32] of the curriculum but what ends up happening is that teachers have to put together these independent living labs by asking for community donations to outfit these labs and so we don't necessarily have a consistent setup at each school and so there's inconsistency across the county so I think it's probably a combination of the inconsistency of opportunities the range of opportunities and how many students are even able to participate in those Additional questions?

[00:23:06] Mr. Morse. I appreciate the update. I had a couple questions. First, you said your results are going through analysis from your survey. Are we going to see those, or are those going to come out after the new year? They'll definitely come out after the new year.

[00:23:21] We still don't have a signed contract yet, but that'll be next, and it does take them a few months to analyze. You talked about MATA programs, and I think that you brought up a really good point, And that is, are there certain courses that or certain venues at MADA, certain programs that would benefit from having special needs children that don't require Algebra 1, that don't require the PSAT?

[00:23:53] So I would like to see if we could get staff to go back and take a look at all the programming over there and see logically there may be some opportunity there. So I think that that's a great idea. I don't know, has that been discussed at length within the SEAC meetings, or is that something that is relatively new?

[00:24:10] It's something that came up relatively recently. We've been having some conversations with the academies of Loudoun, and when we were looking over their materials for entrance into the programs, we saw that requirement. And we're kind of surprised by it, particularly for the vocational nature of some of those.

[00:24:28] So possibly having exemptions for those could be one of the venues as opposed to just doing away with it and having the programs that need it put it back in. It could be handled either way, but I think that there should be some opportunity there. I think the review process, we had some hiccups this year on getting your review comments back to the board in a timely manner.

[00:24:51] I think we've ironed that out. I know the chief of staff has been working on that. have you seen any changes in that or is it too early to tell i think so far it's been going much better it was it was a challenge with getting caught up i think from the summer but now we seem to be on a pretty good cadence and we haven't run into any difficulty okay that's helpful so and we'd like to continue to have that discussion if we're not synchronized because clearly we need those inputs as early as as the information session so that we can look them over the last Last comment I have is for our HRTD.

[00:25:26] We run into this situation not just with special needs instructors and assistants, but with other positions throughout LCPS. And I wondered, when we do comp study, do we take into account the hiring challenges or vacancies in that comp study to determine what the competitive pay scale is?

[00:25:46] Thank you, Mr. Morris, for that question. So yes and no. When we look at the overall scale or the overall salary, per se, we don't necessarily take into account the difficulty in hiring.

[00:26:06] When we look at placement practices and how we apply experience, that's when we take into account the hard-to-fill-ness of a position. Is that something -- I mean, we're talking about some extreme hiring positions, some real challenges that you've brought up through HRTD committee. Is that something that we need to look at further, especially when we start to talk about the new operating budget for the new incoming school board? Is that a discussion that you can have with the new board?

[00:26:43] So what I would say is we've been having discussions now that we've completed a full cycle and we have looked at our scales to adjust some sagging and combined what used to be the classified scale and the administrative scale into a single universal scale. There's been conversations about doing a comprehensive compensation study. And so that is something that we would be discussing with the new board because that would require time and of course

[00:27:13] funding. Thank you. Additional questions? I just had one about the 47 playground visits. I had this mental picture of the whole executive committee on the swings. And I assume you guys are looking for ADA compliance and things of that nature, but could you give a little more detail about what those visits entailed and what types of recommendations you were looking for or you thought might come out of it?

[00:27:38] Sure. Yeah, no, definitely not the whole executive committee going. We just did it with our kids, who are the best playground testers there are. You know, we did look at a variety of things. We put together a survey to fill out to get kind of a comprehensive data set.

[00:27:54] We did look for ADA compliance. did find some examples of where there were truly there was no accessible way into the playground like they were you know there was just wood going around them on all sides so there were some issues with that more of what we were looking for was an inclusive standard trying to determine whether kids could play at various levels together or whether once a wheelchair got onto the playground could it maneuver around the space and what we found with you know the the mulch or wood wood fiber that's on our playgrounds is no that wouldn't

[00:28:32] really be something that's doable so we tried to capture that we tried to capture the variety of playground equipment what kinds of sensory needs could be met by the playground equipment that's existing different sensory panels and things like that and so we really tried to get as comprehensive a look at what we actually currently have in place our next step is We are going to be surveying some teachers to get their feedback on, particularly for our youngest students, where we do not have playgrounds set up for, like, our ECSE students, not permanent playground equipment.

[00:29:11] What kinds of things would they like to see on a playground? What do they think would be helpful? So just try to get as much feedback as we can. Okay, thank you. Mr. Madby. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation, and I think I want to congratulate you and the new SEAC leadership also, and I got a chance to meet with you and Ms. Khan also to learn about the challenges from academies and the transitions.

[00:29:41] I think I know there is some work that we could do perhaps in the end of this year, but I think it's something that the new board can also take it on and find new opportunities for the students. One, I think going back to Mrs. Sorotkin's question on the playground, I know we, and again, Mr. Lewis, I don't know if you're prepared.

[00:30:03] There was an initiative that was put together for inclusive playgrounds. I know it's not for every elementary. I think they're looking at a few. I don't know, Mr. Lewis, if you can chime in on where we are or how we can partner with SEAC to see how we can continue to collaborate and find opportunities to work together.

[00:30:22] Sure. Thank you, Mr. Meheve. I'm not going to have the level of detail that Mr. Stocks will have. He's met with the groups a number of times. And it's actually by policy that we are to continue to replace our playgrounds with inclusive playgrounds as we go through that.

[00:30:37] We're well under our way to doing that. And in a few minutes, we're going to be talking about the CIP, and those replacements are done in the CAPP of that. And so we're happy to provide a full description of that when we have our next work session on a capital budget. Okay. Looking forward to it.

[00:30:53] Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Ms. Crotty, thank you again for the report and for your continued leadership of SEAC. It's very much appreciated. Thank you. Thank you all. All right. We'll now move on to our work session, starting with item 401 from the Department of Support Services, School Board Abbreviated Secondary School Attendance Zone Change Process for Western Loudoun.

[00:31:20] And I'll turn it over to Mr. Lewis and Ms. Tate. Thank you, Mr. Soraka.

[00:31:39] I'm going to ask Mrs. Tate to run through just a quick overview of our recommendations for the Western Loudoun attendance zone change. Good afternoon. School Board policy 6530 changing school attendance zones allows for an abbreviated attendance zone process when certain circumstances exist.

[00:31:59] That would include the starting of a charter school, new residential development, which is often where the board has looked at this abbreviated process in the past, emergency needs certainly and then the two criteria that we are utilizing with this recommended Western loud Western loud and boundary process for secondary schools where it's addressing minimal overcrowding and/or cluster alignment where it involves less than 10% of us the individual schools enrollment we are proposing and the map is in the board Docs item as well as posted on our web

[00:32:35] page we are proposing that eight planning zones that are currently in the Kenneth Culbert Harmony Middle School and Woodgrove High School attendance zones that they be reassigned to Blue Ridge Middle School and Loudoun Valley High School beginning in the fall the start of the 24/25 school year this addresses minimal overcrowding at Harmony Middle School as well as better utilization of Blue Ridge Middle School as we move forward the upcoming capital budget parks price process we have notified the parents the five school communities Kenneth Culbert harmony Blue Ridge Loudoun Valley and

[00:33:14] Woodgrove the communities and the staff of this recommendation that's before you this afternoon we have scheduled a capital our community information meeting which will be on Monday the 27th at Woodgrove High School and then we We have following policy which is an abbreviated process where we present this information at one board meeting.

[00:33:38] We have a public hearing and action of the board schedule for December 12 so that the public has an opportunity to comment. We have received a number of questions and comments up to this point with the notification that went out on Thursday.

[00:33:53] We will be providing those to you as board members. We are responding to the questions. posting them on our web page but we are looking at this as an opportunity to provide some relief for Harmony middle school specifically and where the recommendation would be that both middle and high schools change no change is being recommended for Kenneth Culbert elementary school those students would continue to attend Kenneth Culbert but in doing this we would also be changing the feed pattern for the Kenneth Culbert elementary school last fall when the board took action on some central loud and boundaries we reduced the four

[00:34:31] middle high school feeders that culbert fed to to three and this recommendation would have all of the culbert fifth graders when they graduate either matriculate to Blue Ridge and Valley or to smart smell in Tuscarora so it was a twofold with this abbreviated recommendation part of the recommendation that is before you and part of the item is that staff would recommend should the board take action on this that you at the same time approve any requests for rising seniors rising juniors rising eighth graders to remain at their

[00:35:06] harmony or woodgrove at their level as well as siblings of rising seniors next year we're recommending this in recognition of this abbreviated process the timeline but also secondary school course selections that begin in earnest in january and february so we would like to have the board's permission to move forward with that so that it doesn't prolong that decision process come next calendar year i realize this too is an abbreviated presentation but i'm happy to answer any questions that you all may have thank you

[00:35:42] miss tate board members uh questions regarding the presentation mr batty thank you chair so a couple questions the first one after these technical proposed changes kenneth culbert would just go to two middle schools is that correct that is correct yes sir okay um is that and that kind of falls in my second question so is that a reason these these zones were picked rather than something further south like around round hill is that it just it's a kind of a weird almost gerrymandering of what we're picking but i guess if you're trying to simplify the kwc students i can kind of see that that was the primary reason for looking at that both the

[00:36:22] resident students that lived in these eight planning zones they that middle school level it was 6.6 percent I believe and at the high school level was 8.2 so they both fell under a 10 percent threshold and so we did look at this as an opportunity to provide some relief for Harmony but also to improve the feed system for Kenneth Culbert yes and will it be a problem that is there I guess is there a walk zone for Harmony because we're basically getting rid of that by moving them all to Blue Ridge or Kenna Culver? That's an excellent question. I'm sorry to say

[00:36:59] I don't know it. I will confirm that. And then is there one particular development that's driving this? I mean, I know that WL57, I think it's like 80 homes going in, but are there other developments in these zones or was this more just for contiguity? Harmony and Woodgrove by far are receiving a majority of the new residential growth in Western Loudoun. The Blue Ridge Valley attendance zone comprised of the towns themselves and there's not as much growth going happening there and so we looked at this as a chance to provide

[00:37:38] some enrollment relief for Harmony but also better utilize Blue Ridge and so again Culbert came the focus for us because we also recognized that it was not a pure feed we have a number of schools that are pure feeds and we have the board and staff have for many years looked at how Culbert in the past was for feeds so we're trying to get that closer to most of our schools in the county okay thank you i will confirm the walk zone for you yeah i'd appreciate that additional questions so i would

[00:38:15] be as i've taken a look at the the numbers on this and and feedback from the community that i've received so far um i looking at the the capacity projections we're looking at uh harmony middle school being at capacity, slightly above capacity, topping out at about 101% by 2027.

[00:38:40] And then for Woodgrove, it looks like, as you would expect, the capacity problem is going to hit them about three years later, where it's not really going to hit them until 2028, 2029, when it gets up to 94% and then 98% according to the projections.

[00:38:59] So it's a plan that seems great on paper to better utilize the capacity of Blue Ridge Middle and Loudoun Valley, but it's certainly not as extreme as the situations that we had with Loudoun County High School or Freedom in the past and some others when those schools were at 120% of capacity or even 110% of capacity.

[00:39:24] So you mentioned earlier, one of your recommendations would be that we grandfather in all current, I think you said all current 8th graders and then 11th graders and 12th graders. I'd also be interested in an option that basically grandfathers in anyone who's currently in middle school or high school in the Harmony and Woodgrove cluster.

[00:39:45] Given that the problem is in the future, it's not right now. And I think we have time to accommodate that by letting the students who are currently in secondary school finish out where they are.

[00:40:02] So I would be interested in an option that includes that as well, and I'd like to see what the estimated capacity projections would look like if we do something like that. I think that may be somewhat similar to a motion that Mr. Beatty made in the past when the last time we were talking about that, but I'd like to take a look at something like that.

[00:40:21] Yes, sir, we can do that. May I ask a clarifying question? Oh, absolutely. Would it be your intent or desire to provide transportation? Maybe. I don't know.

[00:40:37] Have we done that in the past? Well, do we do that now? I think, like, under ordinary terms, rising seniors, like, yes, we automatically approve their special permission, but they have to provide their own transportation, right? I don't think we've ever done it where we would provide transportation in that type of scenario.

[00:40:54] The only instance that I recall with the policy is with rising seniors because they're not asked to move. And so we do provide transportation the year that the tenant zone change takes effect. So it would be the 24, 25, but then all subsequent years, it is not in place.

[00:41:12] And so parents would be responsible for driving their children to and from school. Okay. I think what I was envisioning was in line with that where we would treat it. We would extend the legacy or grandfathering to more grades or even all of the grades, but we'd still follow the special permission procedures for transportation.

[00:41:31] Additional discussion or questions? Bless you. Okay. Mr. Beatty. Just to follow up to my colleague. So like you said, we had a kind of urgency with Loudoun County High School in order to fix the overcrowding there.

[00:41:46] Is there that same urgency with this, or is this more just planning ahead three to four years? And is the key thing I'm getting at, does it have to be, I know it's under 10%, so we can do the abbreviated session, but does it have to be an abbreviated session? Can we go through the normal process, get the community buy-in for a change like this, So that, you know, we explore all the options and potentially, you know, make sure that most people are happy with it.

[00:42:13] So we are initiating the abbreviated process in recognition that the board is currently involved in a boundary process for the Dulles South Elementary Schools.

[00:42:33] And in order to utilize the 10% capacity and have the attendance zone take effect in the fall, that is why we're doing the abbreviated process. We could not initiate a standard boundary process with the multitude of meetings for secondary schools specifically to take effect in the fall.

[00:42:58] It would have to take effect in basically 18 months after. We typically do our secondary boundaries in the spring to take effect a year and a half later. So that is certainly an option. But at this instance, we did an abbreviated in conversations with the principals at the four schools.

[00:43:17] I mean, I understand why you might do an abbreviated session. That wasn't my question. Just looking at these projections, we're not even at 100% in any of these schools, right? So like Loudoun County High School was 120%, 115%. It is not the same situation. So it's not the same situation. So that's just my thought of, do we need to rush this, basically?

[00:43:36] That is at the discretion of the board. Additional questions or discussion? Okay. So seeing none, I know there is a community meeting scheduled for November 27th, if I remember the date right?

[00:43:53] Yes, Monday the 27th, yes, sir. Okay. There's that, and then barring any other action from the board, this will get brought back as action during our November 28th meeting? December 12th. December 12th. So we skip a meeting? We are, yes.

[00:44:08] we're giving more opportunity for feedback okay that's good so it will not be action on november 28th it'll be action december 12th okay with that we'll move to 402 also from the department of support services superintendents recommended fy25 through fy30 capital improvement program and capital asset preservation program budgets thank you mr srocka members of the board and superintendent suite or spence sorry about that we are excited tonight to

[00:44:48] bring to you the FY 25 to 30 capital budgets I will say that each of you received tonight at your your to your desk a copy of the written form of the book we also provide those for each of the newly elected school board members and I'll just take a minute to help to try to navigate this book it's quite a bit of quite a big document has lots of information in it if you look at the tab the third tab in it's just labeled FY25 to FY30 CIP you'll see an 11 by 17 fold out that has page numbers referencing each of the projects we're talking about so as you try to navigate through there and that's way too much

[00:45:27] information for tonight tonight is just a high-level overview and we will be talking in general about the information that's in the in the document it's in the CIP, and then we come back to you on the 29th to have a work session. We'll also take just a brief moment to recognize my team, Ms. Tate, that you just saw, Don Traynor, Joe Pascarelli, Bill Woehead, AJ Rewat, and Michael Compton are all here in the back row, spent many, many, many hours putting the documents together along with other members of the team, and so just give them a recognition for tonight's work as well.

[00:46:04] So I'll just start by just describing a little bit about what's in the document. Those of you that have been through this before may already be well-versed, but for the newly elected board members, this document includes the FY25-30 CIP, the Capital Improvement Program, but it also includes a capital project forecast for build-out of the county many years into the future.

[00:46:30] It also includes the CAPP, which is the Capital Asset Preservation Plan. We'll talk more in detail about that as well. You also see there facility analysis, and that's where we have the school-by-school projections for the first six years, as well as the district-wide monitoring of development.

[00:46:46] So many questions we have about what's in the projections, and you'll see that those are developments that we're watching over time that will be contributing to the enrollment of our schools. And we have a glossary and appendices that has many, quite a bit of supplemental information for history and different things in there for us to support the CIP overall.

[00:47:13] So what's in the first part of the capital budget? As I mentioned, we talk about student enrollment. We specifically identify new construction projects, including additions and renovations, talking about site acquisition, as well as replacement and maintenance of major systems, which occur mostly in our capital renewal and alterations part of the project.

[00:47:35] Just a quick shout-out to some recently completed projects. see there and the you know uh never miss an opportunity to talk about the douglas historic renovation which is a fabulous project also broad run has a is a huge mega white megawatt solar array on it we just finished the potomac falls weight room and the briar woods high school classroom edition and those all represent different parts of the cip is why we put those out and we'll talk more about the different places where these projects show up as we move forward in terms of active projects, if you're not aware, we have Watson Mountain and Henrietta Lacks under construction right now. They're both well on their way. We have two wonderfully

[00:48:15] performing contractors on those schools, and they're right on schedule, right where we want to be, and they'll definitely be ready to be open in the fall of 2024, which will be here before you know it. We're also just getting started on the Parkview High School replacement design, as well as the Banneker Elementary School renovation and addition design often we get questions about what projects have are underway and so we wanted to provide a little bit of information there and something I failed to mention if you look in the upper right hand corner of these slides you'll

[00:48:50] see a red page number and that is also corresponds to help you navigate through the document if you want to find different projects or different listings of projects and here you see a number of projects that are underway and and some of those are well underway some are designed some are in construction some multi-year projects but just there for the the history of what were the different things we're working on also take a brief moment to talk about the strategic plan we are fit squarely into goal 3 which is the enriched division and our goal here is to ensure that all of our schools and classrooms across the

[00:49:28] county support the high quality education and the safety and so is mr. Meheve you and I had a conversation at the last meeting about how important our safety projects are and we want to be able to highlight those and we've spent a good a bit of this capital budget working on projects that enhance the safety for our students and staff so a little bit more specifically you'll see in the the CIP itself we talk about construction of new schools but also support facilities the capital renewal and alteration is a single project located within the CIP and we'll talk a little bit more about that but it's something that really affects quite a number of projects what we would call

[00:50:05] miscellaneous or smaller projects we also have our school facility and security improvements the school bus replacements are also included in this land acquisition and for the first time you'll see our enterprise resource planning or the replacement of our accounting system is also a capital budget and we're working with the county on funding for that so the capital renewal and alteration projects and and this is one that the project itself is a single project let me listed within the CIP but includes many many miscellaneous

[00:50:45] or smaller projects and so we we offer that to share and this is where we have some flexibility with our funding from from year to year we move that back and forth and we know that last year we had to make some difficult decisions on some particular projects like that and are in that category and so we'll share with you some of the decisions we made this year and offer those projects and in listing form in a work session to be able to share the types of thing we're doing they include you know replacement repair of updated critical facility systems and i know that's a lot of language there but essentially that is your hvac your major system

[00:51:20] hvac and electrical systems that are the backbone of the facility that are critical to the operation so and so we we make those a high priority to make sure we have operating facilities and that are warm and secure so this this slide is is just to provide a very quick overview of the capital renewal and alterations projects you'll see the the first one building and site renewal that is a project that goes along with all of our critical systems so we go into a building we review the renew the critical systems like we did Algonquin

[00:51:56] in Cool Springs this summer we went in completely gutted the the HVAC systems put it back together for the first day of school and then as we move forward then we go back and do the finishes we've learned over time there's just not enough time to completely gut the systems and the finishes in the building at one time so that's that's the the definition of that and you'll see that there is a gap from 25 and 26 based on what we believe our funding levels will be happy to report that tonight the board of supervisors is voting on taking action on funding the press boxes and weight rooms at Dominion heritage Potomac Falls also the tennis court lighting and so those we've shown there

[00:52:35] is this current FY 24 funding and that's in anticipation of the supervisors approving that this evening you also see many projects and you'll see where they're listed as funded and those are planned funding that is flexible and you know this the board and staff may have to have conversations about making priorities and moving those and you'll see the green areas are talking or indicating where they have been moved from prior years to try to fit within what we believe is our funding limits there are a number of projects there we won't go over those in great detail although I will say about a quarter of

[00:53:12] the way down you'll see their critical systems renewal we do have a gap in FY 26 which is a concern for us as we get many many buildings as many of you have been here for a while know that we built lots of buildings in the last 20 25 30 years and a lot of those buildings are coming of age now where their systems are at the end of their life and have the potential to fail and so we do have a concern about the gap there but we do believe that based on our understanding of the the funding availability is it is important to have that gap there but we pick it up again in FY27. We also did move right below that you see Eagle Ridge Middle School

[00:53:49] Classroom Edition. We have pushed that out into the out years and last year's CIP. We're moving that back to FY27 as the projections of that school show that it's nearing 100% during that period of time. Moving to the Capital Asset Preservation Plan, the CAP, this is where we go into each building and evaluate the systems and as opposed to what I just described as a critical system replacement we replace the entire HVAC electrical systems this is where we go in and strategically replace individual components so if you have an air conditioning unit

[00:54:26] that's starting to show wear starting to show signs of failure we'll go in and replace that we also have them plan for the end of their life and sometimes we have to move those up a little bit ahead of time there's often been questions about in our operating budget how that's comparison the operating budget takes care of those that are completely unexpected and fail without warning that didn't get included in the the the cap but you'll see there the types of projects we have just a few minutes ago we talked about playgrounds and that's where we replace our playgrounds with our inclusive playground and as we mentioned earlier we'll bring a when we get to the work session we'll bring a

[00:55:03] full assessment of where those stand the boards aware we are right now in the middle of a number of projects that are doing our school restroom upgrades it's a pilot program we're doing that in in several schools to be able to some of schools were doing a construction project and some new technology some schools were just on the technology some schools were just on the renovation the technology we're employing well since vaping since loud noises since danger since different types of things and so we're working with the school leadership right now to determine the this operating procedures for when that

[00:55:43] when one of the signals goes off and we know we have an issue and when someone can come in to the to the space so those projects will be done for the second semester we'll take advantage of the period between January and June to see how their systems work get feedback from the community from the schools from the students to see how well they work and then take the next year as a planning period before we embark on any more projects so I know that there's a lot of interest in these projects we're very you know interested in hearing how they're received and how well they function as well and so we believe we have a good plan but time will tell and that's why we'll have the study period

[00:56:20] to determine how well they are working for us. Often we get questions about what was on the bond. We just had an election last week, and so this is just for your information. These projects were on the CIP last year, and so they went on the bond for approvals.

[00:56:41] And the bond question is essentially how the county is going to fund these projects, not approval of the projects, there's approval of the funding mechanism. And so I'll just provide that there as a little background in case you have some curiosity about what was voted on in the bond. We also have a number of projects I mentioned earlier about our energy.

[00:57:01] I mentioned the critical system renewal, but we also have a number of energy conservation projects that we're very excited about. We have 14 schools right now that have solar arrays on them that are actually paying for themselves and showing real signs of savings not only in energy but in the cost as well.

[00:57:19] You see some numbers there that we have, some pretty significant feedback from that lighting controls and LED lighting in 30 buildings we'll talk more about the ground source heat pump but we have fruit well fields at three of our schools we have them now at Banneker and Aldi which are fully up and working ground source heat pump systems that are in place and then we just recently installed the wells at Ashburn elementary school and that critical system replacement will be next summer then it'll be a fully functioning system as well and there's a photograph of the ashburn elementary

[00:57:59] wellfield as as it was being in place and so that is also quite a a few hundred wells to be drilled to provide that heat transfer within the soils and so that was done this summer and as i mentioned we'll bring the whole system online next year we'll also be doing the wells at cool spring elementary this summer and then doing the system for that one after that just a couple of awards We're very proud of the fact that we're being recognized for the work not only in design but in construction over the years and our energy avoidance in our schools and partnerships with our schools, our faculty and our students in there that are doing things as simple as turning the lights off and helping us save that energy.

[00:58:41] School buses, the new areas here were electric buses. We just had a conversation in the finance committee where we have provided an update to the committee on what our current status of the electric bus pilot has been.

[00:58:58] We'll provide that to the school board in the next meeting as well to provide that update as to how well that project is going. We also are recommending that we expand that program into the light vehicles, SUVs, those types of things, as those programs or those vehicles are becoming more and more reliable and expand that program, as well as also looking at the potential of substituting some of our buses with propane buses.

[00:59:25] We have one in service right now that was provided to us free of charge by the manufacturer to test. We're running that in Western Lowne right now, which we do have a fueling station in Western Lowne, so that makes it easier there. But our pilot program would look to other things to help us continue to evaluate that.

[00:59:43] And we'll be bringing to the board, at the recommendation of the Finance Committee at the next meeting, an action item to take advantage of the next EPA grant program that helps us provide funding for the the difference between the diesel bus and the electric bus and as also the propane as well a couple of notables changes from last year's cip we have deferred or removed the actually es24 that was planned for the tuscarora area remember the board provided that proffered site to the county of loudon had a use for that we believe and still believe that if we have some enrollment pressures

[01:00:22] in leesburg in the near in the future that we have room on our campuses for many elementary schools and that we can add on to those so if you recall those who've been here a while that school has been pushed out pushed out pushed out over time and so we believe that is so we've taken out of the cip this year we've also deferred es34 and dullest north which is at the dullest metro station and so that one has not failed they have not started building yet so we don't have enrollment coming in for that so we've deferred that for another two years as well have a couple of projects you see there that on being delayed with the lack of a place to put

[01:00:59] that but we're getting closer on on each of those and we can talk more about that in the work session did want to briefly mention the capital facility planning guidelines that was something that you can find that on page 151 we included that in the CIP last year for the very first time and that includes all of our standards compares our standard ed specs to the Department of Education guidelines also identifies certain planning principles and how many how many of this type of space how many of that type of space how big this buildings are those are also ones that were adopted and approved by the board

[01:01:35] of supervisors and essentially as our standards for for new course school construction along with that the capital planning guidelines also reference policy 4160 which is talk that identifies and establishes our school replacement program and essentially what that says is that we need to evaluate any building that is 75 years of age or older to see if it is structurally sound the systems are sound and probably more important whether it's appropriate for

[01:02:12] the instructional programs that were there where we're in it those who recall we had those conversations about the replacement of Parkview High School and the appropriateness for instruction was one of the topics we talked about classrooms were smaller classrooms had no windows there were lots of narrow quarters those types of things that that building had many challenges in it that other buildings don't and so those are some of the things we're looking at as we do these facility condition assessments on an annual basis so based on that we brought in a consultant to look at a number of schools and you see the list of the schools we did we have received studies for and you'll see

[01:02:49] there on the left you see a staff ranking and then the school plus the age so sterling middle school is 52 years old it is not at that 75 year age but we also know that that building has some particular challenges as do the other three older middle schools that are also on the list that we had some could you know some enough reason to look at those schools from an instructional perspective and the way the buildings were designed and built only 52 years ago and then you see the others so most notably is the the CIP is a six-year document the first year is the mode is the one everyone focuses on

[01:03:26] it's one that's actually funded practices have been for a long time that we don't introduce a new project into a year before this year six and so at this point the staff is not recommended that any show up in year six of that project but we want to have those conversations with the board and so those project complete dates have been listed as to be determined there are many pressures right now and you'll see in a slide in a moment that we have quite a bit of pressure on our project lists and our funding levels that do not allow us to bring those in earlier in the process

[01:04:00] but we look forward to that discussion uh we'll note the bottom the aldi hamilton and lincoln schools are all much older than that we are not recommended that we replace those schools and we just may continue to maintain those as we have in the past we're certainly open to have that conversation and i mentioned a minute ago the financial pressures we've we've put the summary in here and these are based on just very very informal conversations we've had with county staff so we have not been provided official guidance from the from the county similar to what you see with the operating budget process you'll see

[01:04:39] across the top we have FY 25 through FY 30 that's the six years of the CIP we've listed new construction and other projects the capital renewal and alteration projects and then the cap in a total combined you'll see for FY 25 is total of five hundred sixty four million dollars our initial conversations with the county is that will likely be will likely fit into their funding models although you see as you move through 26 27 and on through 2030 that were 7.3 million dollars short in 26 68 million short in 27 those conversations will

[01:05:17] continue as each year we come up and move forward with with the discussions but we just wanted to alert staff or the school board that those conversations may become a point where we'll have to make decisions and now we're back to where we have that flexibility in the capital renewal and alterations program where we can make some impact but some of those numbers are fairly large we're hoping to continue those conversations and and you know if those things change through the conversations with the county then we'll we'll make sure everyone's aware to the point I was just making about the funding levels the Board of Supervisors

[01:05:56] has recognized the immense amount of inflation over the last several years and just reminder that they did increase their annual debt issuance guidelines ADIG we refer to it incorrectly probably as the debt cap but that's you've heard that term over time but they have increased that last year they went from 250 to 325 and they're jumping again to 350 and 400 so the county is recognizing that and planning to help us address that this is also includes their projects but I just wanted to share that again is that it's not something that it's done in a vacuum and they're fully aware of the pressures of

[01:06:35] the cost of construction these days I did also want to put something on your radar that the Department of Ed is working on in response to Senate bill 1124 about creating a standards of quality much like you have for the teachers and whatnot on how to to manage buildings and that would essentially refer to a couple years ago we used to provide information based on the current replacement value the CRP of the amount of schools so you take that value that would cost you to replace the school multiply by a factor and that's how much you should spend on cheer on maintaining your building and so they're

[01:07:13] working on that we're working as best we can to try to contribute to that conversation but that is those on the radar and that might be something that will maybe have more impact on future CIPs but just wanted that to be on your radar for for this year and then as I mentioned earlier today's the 14th on Wednesday the 29th we'll have a work session we can get into a lot more details about specific projects we'll do that again on the 5th and then are scheduled to approve the CIP on December 12th and send it over to the

[01:07:44] Board of Supervisors and in the past we've had fairly significant comments and contributions so we've excuse me worked and we always have the LCPS plan email address that's open but this year we've created a let's talk and it's posted and it says it posted soon but I learned today that it's already posted so we have a let's talk channel out there for the CIP questions and answers and so we'll be happy to use that as we move forward that will help us record those and check those and report out on on what the comments and questions were and

[01:08:19] that is the extent of my overview I'm happy to take any questions and look forward to the work session where we can get into even more detail thank you mr lewis i just have one brief question before i open it up the on where is it on slide 10 that shows the the status of funding for previously funded or partially previously funded projects what you talked about the gap in funding for the critical systems renewal but what is i was unclear on what's causing that funding gap has it always been that way or what's what's going on there so it's just

[01:08:57] That, again, has been part of our conversations with the county on what they believe they'll be able to afford. And so that picture may change. When we put together next year's CIP, we may be able to fill that in. But we're just identified right now there are no planned projects in that year.

[01:09:13] Okay. That seems like a critical system. Seems like a bad one not to find. Okay. We would agree, yes. Okay. Board members, questions regarding the CIP overview. Mr. Morse. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. And thank you to your staff for putting this together. I know it's a heavy lift and there's a lot of great information. I would like just clarification on slide 21 where you talk about capital budgets and you have anticipated shortfalls. What is the anticipated shortfall based on?

[01:09:44] So those are essentially our informal conversation with county staff. And as you probably recall, we're a little ahead of the county's process on this, so their staff is working with us to do the best they can to try to help us understand what that debt service number will be over time.

[01:10:05] And so those are just very preliminary staff-to-staff conversations. Okay, so that captures the projects up at the county level as well. Yes. Okay. Well, actually, this shortfall is just for ours. What they anticipate funding? Yes.

[01:10:21] Anticipated funding? Okay. And I see that the elementary school, yes, 34 at Dulles North, has been pushed out two years. Interesting, the opening date has only been pushed out one year. Are we going back to the time where we don't have two years to build the schools?

[01:10:41] I'll check on that because I know that at one point we made an adjustment to a couple of those, and I'll make sure that that's correct and we'll get that. So we certainly don't want to repeat that. We want to go back to having the two years. Okay. And the last question, and this is something to take with you in research.

[01:10:58] Looking at the ES34 funding stream, it was FY26, FY27, and the recommendation is to push that out two years to 28 and 29. Yet when we look at FY27, there's only a $3 million reduction in the overall budget.

[01:11:15] So there's $70 million approximately being spent on, It looks like it's all within the CRA projects, so there must have been a substantial change in the funding level of FY27. So if you could take a look at the changes in the CRA for FY27 to account for the, let's just say, $67 million, I'd appreciate it.

[01:11:38] Thank you. Yes. Mr. Madby. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Lewis, for the detailed presentation on this. You know, one question I always ask in the CIP is the music programming improvements, that particular project.

[01:11:57] I do see that we have included all 17 middle schools and all 17 high schools. I know not, but I would like to get an update on where we are when it comes to Ashburn schools, and I think particularly with Stormbridge, because that's Stormbridge was the school where we started this particular project.

[01:12:14] So I'd just like to see where we are to getting Stormbridge updated. Yes, sir, and thank you for that reminder. We will definitely outline that for you. And one of the things that, as you know, painfully so, is as we got into looking at that project, it kept growing and growing and growing, and then it became a multimillion-dollar project at all 17 middle schools and high schools.

[01:12:36] So what we've done this year is looked at going back and just addressing the first problem that we had, which was the outdoor storage that started at Stonebridge High School, addressing that, and we think we've got a solution for that. And so we'll do that in stages and then come back and do that. But we'll be able to outline what we're recommending for that total project.

[01:12:53] Sir, are you planning to bring an update back at the next school board meeting? Or you can just email me in the regular school board question updates, too. Either way. Yeah, we would normally plan to bring a full update at the work session on the 29th. If that works, yeah.

[01:13:09] Thank you. Additional questions? Ms. Polifko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Lewis, thank you for the presentation this evening. I wanted to go back quickly to reference slide 12. You gave us an update on the school restroom pilot program, and I know that this funding was approved, I believe, back in the 2021 CIP, if I'm not correct, but I see that the completion is set for January 2024, and you mentioned that, and I'm wanting to confirm that there will be no further movement on the construction of any sort of single-use

[01:13:46] restrooms or any technology in the restrooms until there, if or until there's any feedback received from the community about how this is all working. So there's nothing embedded in this current proposal that includes more construction is what I'd like to confirm. That is correct. We're going to finish these projects in January, take that January to June period, get some feedback from not only the students but the staff and the community as to how well they're working and then we'll come back in next year's CIP and present to the board what we would plan to do moving forward

[01:14:21] accordingly additional questions are just at a very high level i know we'll get a lot more into this during the uh work sessions but are there any new capital programs in the plan i mean i in past years we've you know there have been you know we're going to replace parkview we're going to we're going to do renovations on banneker i don't see anything of this level in the cip i just wanted to that's correct yeah and i called attention that for that very reason is is the school replacement programs the results of that and recommendations would essentially not be in this first six years

[01:15:00] and then we would look to the board for guidance on that thoughts on that and and how we would maybe move forward with those in year seven i i just i use that as an example but i'm also thinking of you know new solar projects or new additional electric buses or or anything is there anything you'd want to call attention to in the cip for new initiatives or new proposals that weren't previously funded yes so we will be continuing those energy projects and we can outline those those are are covered i'm not sure in great detail in in the cip book but we'll be able to articulate where those are and what plans we have moving forward with with those projects you know i

[01:15:38] mentioned the the ground source heat pumps uh we're we're doing the we did the field this year at ashburn we're going to do the hvac system next year cool spring we're doing the the ground source the wells this summer and we'll do those the following year so there are a number of projects that we are moving forward with those types of things including solar panels and we'll certainly articulate all those for you okay thank you yes any additional questions or discussion okay seeing none we will look forward to the work sessions on this as we get deeper into the winter and that

[01:16:12] will bring us to our last work session item 403 from the department of student services

[01:16:18] uh combating substance use in lcps miss richardson good evening chair vice chair members of the board

[01:17:13] and dr spence it is truly a pleasure to be here with you this evening we appreciate the opportunity to address you today on the matter of utmost importance to the well-being of our students and the overall health of our school community the topic of combating substance use in our schools and community demands our collective attention and thoughtful consideration. As stakeholders in LCPS of our children's future, it is our shared responsibility to create an environment that fosters not only academic growth, but also the physical and emotional well-being of each and

[01:17:53] every student. Unfortunately, the issue of substance use is one that permeates every corner of our society. Our and our schools are not exempt from this impact. Our purpose this evening is to foster collaboratively an exploration of the challenges that our students face and more importantly to identify strategies that will empower us to provide the support and guidance they need.

[01:18:25] Throughout the course of this presentation we will examine the current landscape of substance use among our students, and most importantly, the proactive measures that we can take as a school system to address and mitigate the impact on our school community.

[01:18:43] Our goal is not merely to raise awareness, but it is to inspire action and to create an atmosphere in which our students feel understood, supported, and equipped to make healthy choices. Together, we can make a lasting impact on the lives of those under our care.

[01:19:04] This evening, I have with me Mrs. Jennifer Evans. She's the Director of Student Mental Health Services, and Mrs. Jeannie Kloman. She's our Supervisor of Student Health Services. I will now pass it over to Mrs. Evans. Thank you, Tedra.

[01:19:21] Good evening, everyone. I wanted to start off by talking about where I was before I was with Loudoun County Public Schools, Not to share about my resume, but I think it provides some context. Prior to my role here, I was a clinician at Loudoun County Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Developmental Services, providing direct services to court-ordered substance abuse youth and adults in the community.

[01:19:43] Most of those individuals were on probation and had to follow specific treatment guidelines. From there, I went to private practice where I served individual and families as well. So with that lens, I came to Loudoun County Public Schools, and I think it's important to note that when I became a supervisor, and now as the director, I maintain relationships with many of those former colleagues from the mental health field, the juvenile court services, and law enforcement.

[01:20:09] So providing context to that, these relationships are essential, and I think Tedra pointed that out, that this is collaborative work that we need to continue. so i share that because i am committed to maintaining those relationships to solve this issue for our community there we go so here i just want to point out our current landscape the threat of fentanyl is in our communities and these are the long-standing partners that we have in this work and we've also established some new partnerships which i'll go into detail a little

[01:20:47] bit later so loudon county mental health substance abuse and developmental services Loudoun County Sheriff's Department, Leesburg Police Department, and the Williams Center for Wellness and Recovery. They've been key in the work that we've been doing. Bless you. A little bit more detail. This is a slide that gives you an overview of some of the specific tangibles that we've worked on with these partners. The Prevention Alliance of Loudoun is a coalition of youth, Loudoun County agencies, faith-based organizations, and other community stakeholders and parents

[01:21:24] dedicated to mental health awareness and substance misuse prevention efforts. The Prevention Alliance of Loudoun was formalized in 2017 and is made up of stakeholders relevant to the Loudoun County Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Developmental Services Prevention and Intervention Needs Assessment, which was mandated by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.

[01:21:48] The informal coalition was formalized to help provide momentum to the strategic planning surrounding mental health promotion and substance misuse prevention in Loudoun County. They have been instrumental in addressing the vaping concerns that we saw increase over the last few years, as well as the opioid trends that we're seeing now.

[01:22:08] Last spring, LCPS organized a substance use education workgroup, which was focused on looking at the substance use education at the secondary school level. We had representatives from Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, the Department of Teaching and Learning, and the Department of Student Services, who work together to enhance and align the prevention education in both middle and high schools.

[01:22:32] So just to highlight some of the work that we've done over the last school year, we recognize the need for more student, staff, and parent education specific to fentanyl, and I will just highlight some of those efforts.

[01:22:50] In partnership with law enforcement and all of the partners that I've named, we organized six opioid and fentanyl awareness events last school year reaching over 200 attendees about 50 at each the Department of Student Services also presented information to the school board on May 9th to bring increased awareness of the issue and to highlight our community partners in this work Loudoun County mental health substance abuse and developmental services along with student health services provided numerous in-person and virtual revived trainings to staff, which included administrators, student assistance

[01:23:26] specialists, student health staff, athletic directors, trainers, and coaches, and that work is continuing. In 2018, Loudoun County Public Schools had only eight student assistance specialists assigned to our middle and high schools.

[01:23:41] They were covering approximately four to five schools each. As the nation experienced an increase in substance use concerns among our youth, so did Loudoun County Public Schools. This was evident in our violations. Many were due to vaping and e-cigarettes. We were able to hire 11 additional student assistance specialists to meet the needs of our secondary students. We now have 19 assigned to one to two secondary schools. These staff members are highly skilled, master's level, licensed mental health professionals who specialize in substance use assessment and treatment. They have worked in various clinical settings,

[01:24:18] including intensive outpatient, residential, and detox settings, and are now essential members of our unified mental health teams. Last year, we established many new partnerships with organizations that support mental health. The one in particular that I mentioned previously is the Williams Center for Wellness and Recovery.

[01:24:36] They provide the much-needed treatment services to youth and their families in Leesburg. They stand alone. We don't have other treatment options for families who have insurance or don't have insurance or who have Medicaid. We are exploring additional partnerships to bring parent coaching to Loudoun County Public Schools, as well as assistance with navigating the maze of treatment services.

[01:25:02] Briefly, I just wanted to outline the role of a student assistance specialist with regard to substance use prevention and intervention. As mentioned, they provide numerous presentations to students, but also provide professional learning to staff and the community about youth substance abuse trends.

[01:25:20] The team has increased their educational efforts around substance use and fentanyl to parents and staff through the parent education program and parent coffees in the last school year. The student assistance specialists provide nicotine education and a substance use education class to students who violate the 8240 policy.

[01:25:40] They also provide targeted substance abuse groups, individual counseling, and case management to at-risk students with parent permission. They are active in many of our prevention programs, including sources of strength, restorative practices, crisis teams, and responsive services, along with the other unified mental health team members.

[01:26:01] On November 4th, many of you are aware that we hosted one of our first fentanyl awareness events for this school year at Parkview High School. I just wanted to share a few pictures from that day. We had many community partners, including Loudoun County Mental Health. They were there as well, and what they did was they did an on-site revive training to everyone that was in attendance.

[01:26:21] Many of you were there, and everyone walked away with a kit for naloxone. So I do want to review where we are with our substance use education policies.

[01:26:39] We have two. We have the one that was recently reviewed and adopted this school year, which is 5170. This takes a holistic approach to substance use prevention education. So this education is provided through health and PE, family life education, and the student assistance specialists.

[01:26:59] So they're layered in their work together. Policy 5170 was updated in October, and I want to spotlight that it now includes language, naming opioids and other classes of drugs, and the addictive potential. This is our policy 8240, when a student violates for alcohol, other drugs, paraphernalia, or distribution.

[01:27:23] so when a student violates for use or possession with a first instance they are assigned to four days of ISR. Many many years ago we removed the students from school and we were not able to get the interventions to them on a quick at a quick response so this has allowed us to have the student assistant specialists reach them sooner with the interventions so they're in ISR for four days and they receive the substance use education class. With a second violation They're there with first seven days, and they will also do the substance abuse education class again with the student assistance specialist But they adapt it to meet the current needs

[01:28:00] It's not the exact same course with a third violation that usually goes to the office of school administration to determine next steps But that could include long-term suspension or expulsion So where the student assistant staff come in here? They're the intervention not the discipline for distribution of any substance because we were seeing so many students selling, handing out vape devices. We treated it as the selling and distribution regardless of what the substance was, if there was substance in that. So if a student is selling vape devices,

[01:28:35] that's considered distribution or sale. So they will have, for the first offense, four days out of school, three days of in-school restriction, and then a substance use education class as well. So at this time, I am going to turn it over to Jeannie Kloman, who is going to walk us through how do we respond to a suspected overdose which button is so we have a student who may be showing

[01:29:12] symptoms that could be related to substance use we need to determine what our medical response will be so how do we do that we do that by looking at the student and very first thing we want to know is is the student responsive is the student breathing if yes we use our impairment screening tool, and if not, we would activate the medical emergency response team or the MERT.

[01:29:44] The impairment screening tool that we use was developed by Student Health Services with Student Assistance Services and with Dr. Jill McCabe, who is the medical director for the Enova Loudon Children's Emergency Room.

[01:30:00] We wanted to make sure that we didn't miss something. If we have a student who is exhibiting symptoms that could be related to substance use but could also be related to a medical concern such as a head injury or diabetes or starting a new medication at home, lack of fluids, lack of food.

[01:30:23] So it was very important to us to include those questions in our tool. We use the observations that can be-- the tool can be used by non-medical staff to start with and check-- observe the student for certain behaviors or lack of certain behaviors.

[01:30:47] There's a nursing assessment, and we use measurable data to determine the nurse's impression and the disposition of the student. The nurse does not determine that the student has-- is impaired with a substance.

[01:31:08] The nurse does use her observations and can say some of those, all of those observations and the measurable data was within normal limits or some of those observations and data were not within normal limits or this student's symptoms require immediate medical assessment and support by a healthcare provider.

[01:31:30] testing determines if a student has been using substances the student would either stay at school with staff depending on the outcome and the impression of the substance and the impairment tool or go home with a parent or guardian or be transported by EMS to the hospital for further treatment and

[01:32:02] monitoring yeah if when we first see the student and the student is not risk this is how we determine if the student is responsive or not we tap and shout should give the student a little shake we can use a sternal rub which if you do this on yourself if you press here with your knuckles it should elicit pain and that would wake someone up and we look listen and feel for respiration if those are

[01:32:39] absent, the student is not responding, we give two rescue breaths, administer the naloxone, EMS is called, the AED, the defibrillator is applied, and we may begin CPR.

[01:32:56] We continue care until EMS arrives or the student is revived. Additional doses of naloxone may be administered if there is no response to the first dose after two to three minutes. Parents are notified, and if not on site at the time of transport, an LCPS staff member will accompany the student to the emergency room and remain with the student until the parent or guardian arrives.

[01:33:28] All right. To wrap up our presentation, I do want to highlight some of our next steps and our plans. We will be doing ongoing fentanyl awareness events throughout the county. I believe Dominion is scheduled to have one for a smaller Spanish-speaking population on 11-28.

[01:33:50] But the other events, we are trying to determine locations, whether we do community centers or schools. We also, as I've mentioned, had a substance abuse workgroup, substance education workgroup, and we're looking to add supplemental lessons specific to fentanyl at the middle school level.

[01:34:05] All of our presentations now include information about fentanyl at 6th, 8th, 9th, and higher in the high school level. We also plan to certify eight central office staff from different groups to become revived trainers so that we can continue training staff to respond.

[01:34:23] Additional trainings will be offered from Loudoun County Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Developmental Services. We will begin reviewing the medication policy, and we are looking at ways to remove the barrier to substance use treatment. So I'm advocating for lots of intensive outpatient services, speaking to providers, asking if They will take Medicaid, explaining the need, and we're doing everything we can to funnel them into the services that are available, which are limited in Loudoun County and in Northern Virginia in general.

[01:34:54] And we're also looking to explore alternative settings to meet student needs. One would be a recovery high school, which would be a place where a student may go after they have been in treatment 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, depending on their treatment, and they're not ready to go back into their homeschool environment because of where they are in their recovery all the people places and things are still there they just removed themselves took care of themselves have a recovery plan they might not be ready to return so this might be a step down where they could get that support in addition we're looking at transitional centers for students who may go to the hospital for two to three weeks or could go to a

[01:35:32] short-term substance abuse treatment center who aren't ready to go back into that environment need more time to work on themselves in addition we're looking at a 30 day program for students who have repeat violations of the 82 40 policy and need to be removed from that home environment to really do some motivational interviewing work with their families to help them see what is happening and support them where they are all of those would be separate because you wouldn't want any of those same populations to be together and i will open it up to questions

[01:36:04] at this time board members what questions do you have for the team mr morse thank you and we appreciate the update on on the programs and where we're headed um and specifically i just wanted to reflect on the fact that we had six educational initiatives and events with the community in last last year 22 23 so this this is not something new that we're just stumbling into this is something that we've been pursuing for a while.

[01:36:37] I'm a little concerned about the equivalency of someone providing vape pen to someone providing some illicit drugs, oxycodone or fentanyl, being lumped into the same group of offenders.

[01:36:55] I think that we may need to consider stratifying that, breaking it out and making it different penalties for different substances because they're very different substances. Very, very big concern there.

[01:37:11] Lastly, I'd like to know, and this is something that will probably require a little research, I'd like to know where we stand as far as the numbers of students that we have in LCPS, those that have had one incident, those that have had two, and those that have had three, and what the recidivism is of our students.

[01:37:29] How many of those have come back more than once? I think it's important for us to know the success of our program and whether that is an ongoing issue that we have to address more. Thank you. So you are correct. We have done six events and we've done many, many parent presentations last year and to this year. With regard to the policy, the distribution isn't, if we know what the substance is, then we're focusing on the substance. If we don't know what it is and it's paraphernalia, we're not testing that. Law enforcement does not test that so we don't necessarily know what's in that. So vapes could have fentanyl and we don't

[01:38:08] have that information. So we're taking them all very seriously of students or giving any type of substance because even THC oil could have fentanyl in it as well. So we're taking it all seriously because of the lifestyle that comes with selling and distributing and the safety concern that we have for our students. But if we know it's a pill and we know it's nicotine, then that looks different. That would be nicotine education or an alcohol or drug violation. Ms. Corbo and then

[01:38:43] Ms. Polivko. Thank you. And thank you for this overview. I think it's important that we're sharing what we're doing in response to this tragedy in our community and in our schools.

[01:39:01] in September, I did reach out with several questions. Our educators are basically our first responders. They're the ones who are the first to see a student in distress. And I'm wondering, how are our educators prepared to identify students who may be on drugs or having an overdose. I know that this happened in an educator's classroom in September and the educator

[01:39:35] wasn't prepared and had several questions because at what point are they liable if they don't respond quickly enough because they don't or can't identify an overdose in a student. You know, a student may just put their head on the desk. How are we preparing our educators, I guess, is my is my question so when we did training uh last year for naloxone training we shared that best practice now is if you have a student who is sleeping in your classroom that you need to give

[01:40:12] them you need to try and wake them up um we also share in that training what respiratory distress can sound like for someone who's been who has possibly ingested fentanyl um and what that what that sounds like and what to do which is call for help immediately call for help and the nurse will come with the MERT team and I will just add that the SAS is due presentations to faculty as a whole to look at what the substance use trends are what the look fors are and what to do as far as the

[01:40:50] impairment protocol that we've established that if they do have any concern you're not accusing the child of being under the influence you're saying you don't look like yourself I'm concerned about you I need to take you to the nurse and the nurse can then do the assessment and I didn't want to ignore your question about the data we will get that data for you so just to follow up then are all of our educators having this this type of in service or presentation I don't believe all are having this training it's determined by the administrator and they offer that to their

[01:41:29] their staff before or after school but we are expanding our naloxone trainings and looking at offering additional trainings widespread to help them be prepared for this thank you um and then my second question is if we're not not identifying drug use um are we just when if narcan is is um administrator by someone at the school, the assumption is drug use. Is that correct?

[01:42:04] So there's symptoms present that could indicate drug use, yes. And then therefore we administer the naloxone as a life-saving drug if the student's not breathing or responding. But we also apply the AED in case it is not fentanyl and there's a cardiac problem. And we move forward as we would with any emergency and is there some sort of protection for whoever is um is

[01:42:37] administering um the narcan or or drug similar um if there's not um if there hasn't been drug use and and it's just all all of the um the criteria seems to be drug use the narcan is applied um or used and if it i just want to make sure that that um that our employees are protected um if if they do administer um that to a child yes so they would be protected under the good

[01:43:12] samaritan law and it does not have any adverse effects on anyone if you administer it and they do not have opioids in their system okay great thank you mr polivka thank you mr chair thank you for the presentation this evening and um miss evans i just want to tell you that i do appreciate your expertise in this area, and I thank you for giving us more of a clarification as to your background prior to coming to LCPS. That is helpful. And I just also want to say that I have absolutely commended LCPS for putting on these presentations over the past year at multiple

[01:43:49] schools. I was able to attend the one in the spring at Broad Run, and I found it to be very informative. I think it was a great way to bring the community together to provide information that so needed on this very scary topic what I find missing from this presentation is how we are going to be notifying parents how are we going to be knowing notifying the community when these things happen and and where are we that is absent from this presentation and that's one of the biggest concerns that the community had over the events that unfolded specifically over the last several weeks was the lack of communication as to specifically what was going on there

[01:44:28] There have been multiple opinions based on FERPA, based on whether or not that information is, you know, we could divulge that information. Personally, I find that we would be able to notify the community without giving away personally identifiable information in these instances.

[01:44:45] Have we considered a, number one, have we considered looking at an opinion from the AG surrounding FERPA? Number two, what I'd like to know is where are we currently with the executive order that just came out at the beginning of November from Governor Youngkin to notify parents in the community within 24 hours of any overdose. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Polifka. I appreciate the question. So just, and it's a great question for clarity's sake, because the executive order, the first thing it did was it directed the Virginia Department of Education to develop guidance on this issue. And so we are awaiting guidance on this issue from the Department of

[01:45:24] Education. We have not yet received that guidance. Thank you, Dr. Spence. So once we receive that guidance and in the meantime since we're awaiting that guidance and we have parents who are asking questions about why they weren't notified what is our answer for those parents how are we communicating with them to let them know that we are seeking to be as transparent as possible to to build their trust right and we do we do want to be transparent and we've tried to share in

[01:46:00] a variety of ways that we do have concerns about student privacy and we need that guidance to be clear on what we can do moving forward. So it's a difficult position that we're in. And as much as right now, for example, every time there's a medical emergency in our schools, we do notify parents that there is a medical emergency. We don't name the medical emergency for fear of having students be able to attribute whatever that is to the student that they may see going out on a gurney to an ambulance. So we're looking for that guidance to understand how we can protect student privacy with regards to medical records in particular when we have that

[01:46:39] guidance we'll be able to have a clearer conversation about exactly what we'll do every time a student overdose occurs we've also tried to communicate you know and it's i certainly understand the concern i don't want to at all say that i don't understand the concern i mean i'm a father i have kids in school i'm concerned about this as well um i think it's important that we communicate that we're doing the best that we know how with the information that we have i'm not familiar with i've said this before any time in the past that loudon county public schools

[01:47:14] has ever notified schools about a student overdose clearly it's an issue that's existed in loudon county public schools because we've been hosting education sessions on this um i notified the board on october the 18th of an incident that i was aware of because i had been notified that we had an overdose where staff took life-saving measures and i shared that with you all at that time there wasn't a question raised with me about are we letting parents know you know and so it's my radar wasn't attuned to that piece of it I knew we were letting parents know that we have medical emergencies I wasn't familiar during any

[01:47:52] of my previous superintendencies and in conversations with my colleagues of anybody who has made that a practice again I think largely because of concerns about student privacy so I think right now in the public sector there's there's conversations about intent and conversations about belief and so there's this concerns about transparency understand that those are concerns I've heard them at every listening session I heard them before I came here we talked about them and I want us to be transparent so obviously if I felt that I that this was something that we needed to report on we would have

[01:48:31] done that so from an intention perspective there was no intention to withhold transparency we were following the processes and protocols that have been in place in lcps and i don't recall a conversation or had seen any conversations i mean there's press releases about about our previous education events coming out of different offices and i don't recall any calls then for whether or not we're reporting so again i just think it's important for us to kind of acknowledge okay now we want to report now we have an executive order so we're going to know better do better and lean into with our governor's office the guidance

[01:49:10] that we get from the Department of Education and we're going to make sure that we do follow that guidance and I hope it will come forward and it will be helpful because it's not something that we've had up to this point. Additional questions? Ms. Tolligan. I also had a question.

[01:49:32] So for the substance abuse education classes after violations, you said that there are classes after the first and second violations. My question is, do these classes defer in any way or is it kind the same course the general course are they specialized that is a great question they are different they're tailored to the individual student we used two years ago have the students come together from different schools at our former douglas high school but now because of the unique needs of all students we're really tailoring that to each student in each school building so that same student assistant specialist will continue to meet with that child and look at

[01:50:10] things from a different angle help them really look at their use and the patterns and how it's impacting them look at their defense mechanisms look at their risk factors protective factors and help them seek out the services in the community thank you welcome additional questions mr baby thank you chair so echoing from one of my colleagues i do think in the collaboration is key i think there should be a fifth bullet point in there and that should just be the families of the students involved and i think we have to put that uh first or you know as part of that conversation and then piggybacking on top of that so we have on the slide that if they do end up

[01:50:48] going to get a medical treatment that the parents are notified right but are the parents notified if we just apply the impairment screening tool like what's the policy for that is that like a note to the nurse through parent view or something like that or note from the nurse parent view or we have a procedure and and the the student remember the disposition we talked about the disposition where the student would go. If we apply the impairment screening tool, the student can go with an administrator, and they may call, the nurse may call. But yes, we would let the parent

[01:51:25] know if we used an impairment screening tool. Thank you. Mr. Madhvi. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for this presentation. Along with Ms. Sheridan, I was able to participate in the session in the Parkview High School. And I think somebody mentioned in response to the tragedy. I think that's, again, a very misleading statement because I think as staff has been making, I think Mr. Morris alluded to, that staff is well aware. They've been

[01:52:00] planning and training and creating an education awareness regarding this substance abuse for all of the district. I remember getting an update from my middle school, and I know I've shared all this, shared my personal information about, you know, what I go through because I have skin in the game in the public school, making aware that my child or my child's friends were not sharing candies. I mean, that simple as that, because I know it was being introduced in a very simplistic way to the children. So I know the parents were made aware of the training, as Ms. Polifco

[01:52:36] mentioned, was pretty effective and was shared within that. There are a couple of questions I have. One, it always comes back to, I think, in that session in Parkview, both are community partners from the county and the sheriff's office, including Mr. Chapman, alluded to this as a community issue. We are a reflection, public school and LCPS is a reflection of the community.

[01:53:00] So I think everybody in the room, remember, talked about this being a community issue and not just an LCPS issue. So I'd like to understand, and maybe if you don't have it, I can understand that, but what is the county doing? Again, there's a lot of ask from the schools to address this, and you're being on the county side, how is the county addressing this substance abuse tackling?

[01:53:22] And I think I know the officers within under Chapman are, they're working hard, and I know it's a, we had the DEA agent too. I think it's a never-ending battle to deal with that. But I guess, because it needs to have a, not, I think, somehow literally this LCPS issue, and I think it needs to be a comprehensive.

[01:53:40] I think that's exactly the message was shared with that. But I don't see that being reflected out when I hear some of the questions tonight. And so I think that's some of the questions. And what is county doing? Because we think they have to be a partner, not just give a lip service on that night and just walk away.

[01:53:57] They should be, and I think all the two members in this thing should be held accountable by the community, not just by us, but the community should be asking the questions of the county and of the sheriff's office. What are they doing to help address this fentanyl or other substance abuse issues within our community?

[01:54:14] So I think that's one comment on that. As far as, you know, I think there's more in communications, and I agree there's, obviously, there's more, we need to communicate with the parents, and there's a fine line of how much of that needs to be communicated.

[01:54:31] But as a, you know, I think via the school board, so just to share with the public, I mean, for everybody, via the school board creates policies. So I'll give you a very simple example. Policy 3070 was last updated back in 2022, And at that time, we also created a regulation.

[01:54:50] So I would encourage the public and everybody to go check it out. It kind of lays out a very simplistic way to look at what different communications, what type of communications, and when they should be shared with the committee. So as a chair of the committee itself, I would have hoped that instead of coming back and attacking the school division on what communications have, have not been done, we should have taken in the committee and said, well, how do we go back and fix the policy or fix back in the regulations?

[01:55:17] so the new incoming board doesn't have to deal with the challenges of the communication. So I do want to take, you know, again, my comments about what is the county and other partners doing. I'd like to understand better. But at the same time, I think we as a board should take up, and if there's venues or they have comments or feedbacks on how to update the policy and the regulation, they should take up in the committee and bring it to the full board.

[01:55:41] Thank you. So I can briefly speak to what Loudoun County Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Developmental Service is doing. They have a prevention and intervention team. That's about eight or nine prevention specialists who go out to our schools, and they're going out to our at-risk schools. They do after-school programming, and they do groups in select schools, and they co-facilitate with our unified mental health team members.

[01:56:02] They have a small team, so they're only able to go to a certain number of schools where it's needed. In addition, they also are leading the coalition, which we talked about. I did have a conversation with one of their leaders who sees the gap in services, and we're going to be organizing a work group.

[01:56:18] So including law enforcement, including Loudoun County Mental Health, including the Williams Center, to try to figure out how we find a detox center, not even just in Loudoun, but in northern Virginia or in the state of Virginia for kids. And where is there a closest residential treatment center that accepts students with Medicaid?

[01:56:36] The closest treatment center is Crownsville, Maryland. And from what I understand, the Williams Center is sending students to Kansas to go to treatment with Medicaid. That's just not ethical in my mind to be sending kids that far when there needs to be a parent component.

[01:56:51] You mentioned parents and how instrumental they are in this. So we try to engage with the parents, give them tools to navigate this. What does it look like at home? What are the safety measures they're taking into place and putting into place? And where's the support for them with regard to navigating addiction?

[01:57:07] And that's really what this is. So I want to bring it back to the recidivism. We're talking about addiction, which is a medical disease. So we're going to see recidivism. if we don't have the treatment in the community. So since you answered the question, so has there been a community reach out to the supervisors to help create that in their budget cycle to create such a center then?

[01:57:30] I cannot answer that. I know we've had the dialogue. I'm not sure what the next steps are, but I can reach out to Dr. Tamar Graham. So I hope the same thing, and I think that there's a part for us to do, which I think more needs to be done, not to say that we are doing things. I think we all agreed in the context of that things we're doing, I think we need to do much more and better, but at the same time, we need to have the partners to step up, too, and help us with that, as well.

[01:57:54] So, thank you. Chairman? Dr. Spence. If I could just add to that quickly. So, right, I think it is a community issue. It's a county issue. I also think it's a state issue and a federal issue, particularly when it comes to treatment options.

[01:58:12] And so I do think, I know we'll recognize them later. We do have some of our new board members here, but I do think we need to engage in advocacy at the state and federal level on this topic, because we don't have enough treatment options for children. There are FDA barriers to treatment for children as well under the age of 18.

[01:58:29] In addition to that, you asked about Mr. Moore's recidivism. There is a model that works. It's a recovery school model. There's a National Recovery School Association. The General Assembly gave funding to the Chesterfield and Central Virginia community for a recovery school, and I think that we ought to be advocating for a recovery school in every region of Virginia.

[01:58:49] The general model of that is that if you are in recovery, it's very difficult to go back to a comprehensive high school with 2,000 students who are not experiencing what you're experiencing. And the recovery school model allows you to go to school with other students in your region who are with additional layers of support to prevent that recidivism.

[01:59:06] And what you will find out when you see this data is we do have a number of students who come back and are continuing to struggle with addiction because, as mentioned, it's a disease. And while we can't solve this problem, I mean, schools are not equipped to solve addiction problems. And our community can't look to schools alone to solve addiction problems.

[01:59:25] We can help with our students and families, the supports that you saw us talking about. We can help with education. We can partner with other community organizations. But we can't be expected to solve this problem alone. And we need to be advocating together to make sure that we can provide these kinds of resources for our students, for our families, in our communities.

[01:59:46] I mean, what was kind of said but needs to be said again, there are no inpatient facilities for families of students struggling with addiction available to us in Loudoun County. No inpatient facilities. I mean, so we're sending students out of state, across the country for that kind of support.

[02:00:05] And that just shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. And I think that a collected effort and advocacy here at the board level, but certainly with the county and then beyond that, because the real funding for that is going to need to come at the state and federal level. And you're probably familiar, the Biden administration just released funds for treatment facilities and options in our communities.

[02:00:25] And I think that's something we need to be talking to our federal delegation about and making sure that here in Northern Virginia, those options exist for our kids. So there's a piece that I think we've been missing in the discussion that we've had tonight, a big piece, because we've talked a lot about treatment, response, recovery.

[02:00:46] recidivism and communication. I want to point out that the DEA's slogan on fentanyl is one pill can kill. Like you, there may not be an opportunity for treatment. There may not be an opportunity for response. There may not be an opportunity for recovery and for recidivism because it may not get that far. It could be that a student picks up a pill for the first time in their life, tries it out, has an overdose and dies. So we've talked a lot tonight about like we have a substance use education class, that's only being given to students who are on the ISR and have already

[02:01:24] been caught once, right? Or is that being given to all students? I didn't want to interrupt you, but we do have substance abuse presentations and lessons that are given to all students at 6th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, 10th, 11th as they transition. I was getting to that. I was getting to that, but I'm talking specifically about the substance abuse education class. That's part of the response after the first incident, right? Yes, but you can also do it voluntarily So parents can refer their kids to that class voluntarily, too, if they have concerns and they're not sure what's going on with their kid.

[02:01:56] The community events, I'm glad we're doing them. It's an important part. It is largely, if not exclusively, attended by parents, right? Not by the students? Some parents bring reluctant teenagers to the presentations.

[02:02:14] Some? Some, yes. Okay. You know, Narcan and Alexone training, that's for teachers. it's of course that makes sense but it's it's not for the student so I really want to understand you know what is the full scope of what all of our students are getting to drive prevention in addition to all of the treatment response and recovery stuff that's necessary so now I know you wanted to talk about that and I cut you off but I really want to give you an opportunity to talk about what we're doing now what we're going to add you talked about supplemental fentanyl lessons at the middle school level, but I really want to understand

[02:02:54] what is going to get the message effectively in front of our students. So like I said, we do have presentations that are given to all students at the sixth grade level, at the eighth grade level, at the ninth grade level, and then later on in high school that are more specific to transitions, but we've embedded fentanyl information into all of those.

[02:03:14] In addition, in ninth grade, we are working with law enforcement to do a two-part presentation. So the SAS will work with the students in a classroom setting and then prepare them for the SRO to join them for the second part. Second part, they're going to have a conversation with law enforcement to learn more about fentanyl.

[02:03:31] The lesson that we're looking at is One Pill Can Kill from, I can't think of the organization, is the DEA, I'm assuming. That's for seventh grade. So we're looking to implement that there. But you're right. Some students make one impulsive decision and they don't have a chance and it's not addiction.

[02:03:48] So, and I've heard that from family members who have lost LCPS graduates, and I've also heard from students who, their drug of choice is fentanyl. That's what they want to use. They know exactly what they're taking. So, it's on both ends. So, it's fentanyl poisoning or addiction. Thank you.

[02:04:05] Mr. Mahatma. Thank you, Chair. I think one thing brings me back. I think on one of your slide 10, where you were talking about policy 5170 in education, it was part of the family life education. So what happens if, I mean, I know many families opt out of family life education.

[02:04:25] So how are we, again, this is a presentation, and I'm going to go on a little bit. There's always talk about opting out. So, I mean, can you speak to that? I mean, how would we address this gap that exists in terms of educating the children to what Mrs. Rodkin is talking about, but making sure that that goes along well with the parents too, I guess.

[02:04:49] So when we are getting prepared to do those presentations, they are embedded in Health and PE. So the Health and PE teachers are still there, but the SASs go into this classroom or an auditorium with multiple classes to provide that lesson. We do tell parents in advance, so they have the opportunity to opt out of that.

[02:05:07] And then they also have an opportunity to opt out of FLE. So we might miss kids with this, and I don't think there's any solution to that. but we're giving parents a preview of what that lesson looks like, what the presentation looks like. Here are some talking points for you to have this conversation at home so that it's intentional, but we still do have opt-outs.

[02:05:26] It's very rare, but some parents don't want us talking about substance use concerns with their kids. I know this is not for you, but I know I've heard from many students that, and again, this is my perhaps feedback. I think we'll take it in a constructive way for the sheriff's office and the DARE program.

[02:05:44] How can that be updated to, you know, bring it or maybe, like I said, I haven't seen it since my kids were elementary school. So if that's been updated to introduce fentanyl and other sort of a substance abuse, I shouldn't even call it substance abuse. I mean, like I said, it's one pill can kill to create more awareness and knowledge through that program and early in elementary as well.

[02:06:02] So, okay. Thank you. Any additional questions for discussion? Mr. Beatty. So following on the parental notification, and I guess this is more for Dr. Spence. So I've got this Virginia Mercury article, and it says, in the order, the administration pointed to nine opioid overdoses involving students enrolled in Lowndon County Public Schools that it says occurred in October 23 alone and criticized the division for, quote, reportedly waited more than 20 days to inform parents despite clear evidence of numerous incidents of overdoses.

[02:06:35] So when they say parents there, does that mean the parents of the students themselves? Does that mean the parents of all the students in the school? Why would they have 20 days as a number? Why would they say the parents weren't being informed? So, Mr. Beatty, I don't know where the 20-day number came from based on the order.

[02:06:54] We notify, if there's any instance, as you heard about our procedures, any parent whose student has had a medical emergency, we are not only just notifying, but we're providing them with additional layers of support. So my assumption, and thank you for asking the clarifying question, is but my assumption is not notifying all parents.

[02:07:12] And I've explained why we haven't been in the position to notify all parents and recognizing that there's some disagreement about that. We're looking forward to the guidance that's asked for in the executive order. When I say, I don't know where 20 days came from, let me just very quickly walk you back through.

[02:07:30] On October the 17th, it was the first time in my time in Loudoun County that I heard that we had had an overdose. Told you all about that on the 18th. The next time that I heard any more about this issue was when Sheriff Chapman called me, and that was on, I want to say, October the 24th.

[02:07:46] It was the Wednesday before the Halloween weekend. He expressed concerns about Parkview High School, and so on the very next day, I had a staff meeting. I asked a task force to get to work on three things, an education plan, a safety assessment, and a communication plan, first for parents at that school, and then second for our community.

[02:08:07] they met with the sheriff's office the very next day they talked about all three of those things a communication was developed the principal made the decision that we weren't going to have students back in school until Wednesday so he sent that out on Tuesday he wanted parents and students to see that fresh on that Tuesday I'm not sure that was the right decision but I understood his reasoning for doing that after talking about that with him so on a Wednesday I got this concern on a Thursday my team started working on Friday we met with the sheriff's office and before children were back in that building a parent communication had gone out that whether or not we agree that communication

[02:08:46] did say that we had had an issues in our building and we needed our parents help and we provided a list of resources and we talked about the kind of help that we needed that same evening was when I was notified by our sheriff that he was sending out a press release he didn't feel that we were taking it seriously enough and put it out and then we had already been working on and parent communication to go out to the entire community but the next day we also received the governor's executive directive so that was kind of the quick succession so I don't actually know where the 20 day timeline came from but I do know that I tried to take quick action I do recognize that it does

[02:09:22] not matter what I say that because of the broken trust here in Loudoun County and concerns over transparency people are going to think that we weren't being transparent and all I can say and all I want to continue to say is is not our intention to withhold important information from our families I want to get good guidance from the Department of Education on how we can do that without violating student privacy rights.

[02:09:42] I'm looking forward to having that conversation when that guidance comes out and thinking about, for example, Mr. Mahedovey from a policy direction, where do we need to include that in our communications? And look, when you know better, you do better. And we're going to learn from this moment. We're going to decide as a community and with our school board what it is that we do need to do, how we can do that in ways that are protective of student privacy as the executive order calls for.

[02:10:06] And we want to move forward. And that's really where we are in this moment. Any additional questions? uh miss corbeau and then miss polico thank you i um appreciate all of this information and i appreciate that we have had a work session um on this topic i've learned a lot and i think the community um has as well and i think that that we are having a very true and open conversation on

[02:10:40] what we can do to do better and you know with with that whole tagline one pill can kill um to me this is a tragedy this is a crisis because every student is important and we can't afford to lose one and so we need to be the most prepared that we can be and so i truly appreciate this um this conversation that you know all the all the key stakeholders right now who who can take action and can prepare educators and prepare our students and educate them and also um to to also have

[02:11:16] parent input and reach out to our parents as well i mean it's all hands on deck and and with when you're talking about um you know drug abuse and you're talking about um the the mental health of our students um with addiction and not having any support here in loudon county that does open up to a whole nother conversation that is critical that that we have i believe with our board of supervisors and others who can help us to provide that sort of service to our students, our families within the community. And I'd be very happy to help out in any way when we move forward with

[02:11:55] that effort. Thank you. Ms. Polithko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I do want to tell you that I appreciate you bringing up the one pill can kill information because you're absolutely right. And I think that is the biggest concern here, is that it's not necessarily just, you know, it's any kid can get anything at any time that's laced with fentanyl, and they can die.

[02:12:17] And it may not necessarily be an issue of drug dependency. It could just be experimentation. And that is what is so scary about all of this. Dr. Spence, could you please confirm that you received feedback from Sheriff Chapman about providing more clarity to the community about what was going on in this string of overdoses that occurred over the last few weeks. My concern here also is that the board was not notified of the rash of overdoses. Yes, the 18th, but not the rash of overdoses that occurred in the subsequent

[02:12:56] days, the subsequent week following that one. And that I, as a board member, had to find out about a lot of this I found out about it first through the news and through social media and this this board should be this is life and death and the board should have been notified so I do want to hear from you your confirmation of the fact that Sheriff Chapman asked you to provide more thorough information to the community. Yes ma'am we had a conversation where he expressed his concerns about what was happening there and we talked about the need for communication which is why I put that team together the next day. And the board and I have already had some communication about

[02:13:35] not being made aware of this, and I have owned that. I told you I accept the responsibility for that. And it was my intention to make sure as we move forward that you are aware of any overdoses that occur. Board members, at this time, we're going to go into our evening recess. So we had a closed session as item five. It's also item 16, because I wasn't sure if we were going to get to it now. So we're not going to get to it now. So it'll be at the end of the night. So at this time, the board is in recess and we'll be back for our evening session at 6 30 or possibly a little bit

[02:14:10] later given given when we're going into recess good evening the board is coming out of recess

[02:43:05] we're going to pick it up with item eight on our agenda which is the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem both of which tonight will be performed by the lovetsville elementary fourth and fifth grade chorus under the direction of chorus director and uh antonio ford and the nurturing support of chorus mom Erin York. This dynamic group of over 50 talented singers is known for their harmonious voices and infectious enthusiasm. Lovettsville Elementary is led by the visionary principal Linda Textoris, whose support for the arts has allowed the Lovettsville

[02:43:39] Chorus to grace prestigious stages including the White House National Christmas Tree, Washington Nationals Games, Loudoun United Soccer Games, and various local community events. This performance featuring a select group of about 15 dedicated singers continues their tradition of spreading musical joy. As ambassadors of Medley, the Levittsville Chorus extends its reach beyond the school walls, sharing their uplifting tunes at town events, the community center, and even the magical Hershey Park. Please join us as they lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and then in

[02:44:15] celebrating their musical journey with their rendition of the National Anthem. It was wonderful.

[02:46:17] Thank you all so much for being here tonight and for that rendition of the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem.

[02:46:36] This is bringing back some memories.

[02:46:58] More recess, Jeff. All right. So the next item on our agenda is the recognition of our school board members elect. A week ago today, voters in Loudoun County elected our next slate of state and county leaders, including the nine seats on the Loudoun County School Board.

[02:47:17] It is my privilege to introduce our presumptive members elect to the public for the first time today. After I call your name, please come up and line up in front of the dais, and then we'll get a picture with all of you once we have you all up there.

[02:48:53] Representing the Dulles District, Member-Elect Melinda Mansfield.

[02:49:08] Representing the Leesburg District, Member-Elect Lauren Chernoff.

[02:49:23] Representing the Little River District, Member-Elect Dr. Sumera Rashid.

[02:49:38] And representing the Sterling District, Member-Elect Arben Estreffi. Congratulations to you all.

[02:49:55] It is one of the responsibilities of the chair of the board to conduct orientation sessions for incoming board members, which will start towards the end of this month. Throughout that process, I'm looking forward to getting to know each of you a little better and to help you give the tools that you need to be successful in your new roles.

[02:50:12] The members elect will be sworn in and assume their office at the school board's annual organizational meeting on January 2nd. Ladies and gentlemen, the 2024 Loudoun County School Board.

[02:50:23] Next, we'll move on to item 902 for the one LCPS spotlight on student voice from Loudoun

[02:52:10] Valley High School. And I'll turn it over to Dr. Ross and our team and students. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Sorokin, Vice Chair Mehedevi, board members, Superintendent Spence. We appreciate being here tonight to share ways that student voice is amplified at Loudoun Valley High School.

[02:52:30] I'll introduce our staff and student presenters, note where we find the focus on student voice in our 1LCPS Strategic Plan for Excellence, and then turn over the presentation to our student council, association members, and board leaders. Next slide.

[02:52:49] And next slide again. Thank you. With us this evening are our SCA advisors, Sarah Weller and Michael Virup, our student activities and engagement coordinator, Alex Orton, and our student council association members and board leaders, Jordan Ayers, Logan Buckley, Sienna Dillon, Grace Machery, and Claire O'Connor.

[02:53:13] As you will see shortly, these students are truly leaders of leaders at our school because they understand deeply what collaboration is and the work that goes into doing it right, Though it's sometimes messy, it's deeply rewarding to our school culture. Goal one, next slide, please.

[02:53:31] Goal one in our LCPS strategic plan, where students are at the center of our work, and specifically for tonight's presentation, where we create regular opportunities to amplify student voice through both listening and action, is our focus this evening.

[02:53:47] And now our student leaders will share their work at Loudoun Valley. Next slide. Hello, my name is Claire O'Connor, and I'm a member of Student Council at Loudon Valley. The topics that we will be talking about today that represent Student Voice at Loudon Valley are student advocacy, communication, partnerships and coordinating events, inclusion, diversity, and leadership development.

[02:54:12] Next slide. Student Voice is extremely important at Loudon Valley so that we can facilitate and implement inclusive solutions for the entire student body, giving voices to those who can't or won't speak up. We do this by hearing ideas, concerns, and suggestions.

[02:54:32] Some examples of this are one lunch. At Loudoun Valley, all the students eat on one lunch shift in approved faculty-monitored locations throughout the school, inside and outside. We also have Viking Time, which is a 40-minute extended homeroom that most students use as a study hall.

[02:54:49] They are able to meet with teachers to get extra help, get caught up, or make up or retake tests. These two opportunities are very unique to Loudoun Valley, and students are able to continue to enjoy them thanks to student and faculty input, helping them run smoother.

[02:55:05] Valley has recently become an IB school, an official IB school, so we are currently going through the IB shift. We are also going through the school accreditation process, which we have been holding student focus groups for, getting a better idea about the current student in school environment and how we can improve that in the future.

[02:55:26] These processes are able to run so smooth thanks to student and faculty input. I am a part of a committee within SCA that is applying to the National Council of Excellence. This honor will allow us to be represented on a national level.

[02:55:42] This year we have also implemented the new cell phone expectations which have been running so smoothly thanks to the student ideas and concerns that we got prior to the expectations being implemented last year. Next slide please.

[02:55:59] Hi, I'm Sienna Dillon. I'm a board member of SCA and I serve as Vice President of Public Relations. And today I'll be talking about communication within Loudoun Valley High School. Communication ensures that students are informed about important school matters and events.

[02:56:17] It allows a sense of both community and excitement around the school. Communication also has the effect of creating more student-led participation and allows our school events to run smoothly. Some examples of using communication within Loudoun Valley are social media accounts, whether it's Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook.

[02:56:37] We create different interactive posts to the student body, so they are informed about certain events that are coming up, and it also creates that sense of spirit within our school. With our social media accounts, we are also able to collaborate with all 50 clubs within our school and promote different things that different clubs are doing, Whether it's a new Deca shirt or a service club, a food drive, those are different things we promote.

[02:57:03] I would also like to highlight that our Instagram account is a business account, which means we get analytics on every post. And it just shows us what our student body interacts with most. Lastly, I want to talk about an alternative to our social media accounts, which is different advisory slides.

[02:57:22] student made student made banners as long as student made flyers and this is again is just an alternative to our social media accounts. Thank you. Next slide please. All right my name is Grace Macheri and I'm a member of Loudoun Valley Student Council. As a student council we focus on concerns and needs within our school's community. Our commitment to as a student body is to make a positive impact at our school. Coordinating with clubs, boosters, and our community allow us come together together give back to others and promote student leadership some examples of these

[02:58:01] events include safe night halloween which is sponsored by our national honor society which allows kids from around western laden to come to laden valley grow trick or treating and it provides a safe and fun halloween for our community spring wellness walk is sponsored by our peer organization this event is encouraged to all the students to participate and all the the clubs to coordinate and they can coordinate activities and it promotes mental health awareness. The Colette Bain fundraiser was coordinated effort between Loudoun Valley and Woodgrove High Schools to raise awareness and raise

[02:58:38] money for the seizure disorders. Our athletic boosters and athletic department also played a huge role in this event. The picture on the bottom right shows a shirt made by the athletic boosters which was sold to both schools to raise money. Every year the Loudoun Valley Service Initiative collects Thanksgiving food for the tree of life. Each homeroom is responsible for bringing in items for a complete Thanksgiving dinner for a local family. In October, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, DECO works with Loudoun Valley Breast Health Awareness, our athletic department, and our

[02:59:13] student section to promote breast cancer awareness by wearing pink ribbons and socks. Thank you. Next slide, please. Hello and good afternoon. My name is Jordan Ayers. I am a proud board member of Loudoun Valley's SCA in the role of Vice President of General Activities, as well as a School Equity Ambassador and Co-President of our Black Student Union. Inclusion diversity is extremely important in and of itself, but is especially important to Loudoun Valley as it creates an environment where students and staff can feel safe, valued, and respected. It also helps

[02:59:49] us to understand perspectives and cultures that may be different from our own. Some ways in which Loudoun Valley ensures inclusion diversity is by taking careful consideration of equity when selecting school spirited events and themes. This includes the selection of our spirit days for our school spirit weeks. We make sure that everyone can not only participate in these themes, but feel comfortable and respected when doing so. Enhancing culture through our selection of our Mardi Gras homecoming theme is another example of this. During homeroom, slides are presented with information about culture and fun facts behind the theme. Clubs also play a hugely important role in inclusion

[03:00:26] diversity at Valley, as they create a welcoming environment for all students to learn, grow, and uplift each other's voices. Some examples of these amazing clubs at Valley include our Black Student Union, Culture Club, and Students' Name Action Club, and that's just to name a few. Field trips also play a role in inclusion diversity at Valley, as last year our African-American history class, as well as our Black Student Union, took a trip down to D.C. to visit the African-American History Museum. Students loved and learned so much from this trip that we are honored to take it again later this February. We also ensure inclusion diversity in our pep rallies by not only highlighting the accomplishments of our athletes but our entire student body at large. And last but

[03:01:06] not least, last year our partners club hosted along with the help of other clubs in our school, they hosted the Special Olympics. Valley was the first school in Loudoun County to host the Special Olympics. It was a day where students with special needs from all around the county joined our students on our football field and spent a day engaging in fun track and field games along with other fun activities. On this slide you can see a picture taken last year at our field trip to the African American History Museum, along with a photo from the Special Olympics. Thank you.

[03:01:36] Good evening. Next slide, please. I'm happy to be here. My name is Logan Buckley, and I have the honor of being Loudoun Valley Student Council President. I'm going to talk to you about leadership development and the role that it plays within our school community. So Loudoun Valley has the honor of hosting several different clubs, organizations, and leadership divisions within our school. Some of these include FCA, Project Lit, LVSI, PRISM, Cyber Patriot, Red Cross,

[03:02:11] Orchestra, Color Guard, FBLA, and our athletic programs. All of the mentioned organizations were able to attend the county's WILD conference this year and showcase Loudoun Valley's diverse level of leadership on a county-wide platform. Now, why is leadership development so important?

[03:02:29] From an SCA perspective, it's helped with what I like to call the three C's, communication, confidence, and compromise. These are three traits that enable student leaders to work together all across the county and incite change that they want to see within the classroom and in LCPS as a whole.

[03:02:49] We as SCA members get to exercise these traits in our, first off, 100% student-led PEP rallies. You can see this on your slideshow. SCA member Colin Rinkowski emceeing our pep rally, hyping up the crowd, and taking complete charge.

[03:03:06] We also get experience in our in-class student activities. Every week in SCA, we have things called leadership activities, where students pair up, get together, and come up with different leadership activities that they want to further strengthen these traits.

[03:03:24] Outside of Valley, you can find us at different leadership conferences and trips. For example, Camp High Road, that's another picture that you'll see on your slideshow, where we got to work together outside of school and work on some team building, as well as the Wild Conference and the VHSL Conference that we got to attend this past weekend.

[03:03:43] Inside of Loudoun Valley, we get to compromise and communicate with the administration to benefit the school community through providing feedback on different school-wide decisions. For example, previously mentioned we talked about our one lunch shift as well as the phone guidelines, and this was when we got together with our school admin and gave feedback on a student perspective, how that might be received and different ideas that we thought would benefit those different implementations.

[03:04:17] We also discussed academic integrity on a school-wide level and how we can keep our student body accountable and the shift into the IIB programs and how we can further support that. Thank you so much. Next slide, please.

[03:04:37] These pictures are what we think truly represents student voice within our school. Whether it's clubs, student-run events, student-led prep rallies, or our social media accounts with our different social media posts, everyone has the opportunity to have a voice and be a student leader at Loudoun Valley High School.

[03:04:54] next slide please we would like to thank you for this opportunity to share about student leadership and voice within Latin Valley we will now open it up to any questions you may have for us thank you so much for that great presentation about how student voice is so embedded at Latin Valley it's really it's really great to hear I'll start with two questions first the you mentioned that you look at the analytics on the social media posts to see what students are engaging the most with so what types of posts are students engaging the most

[03:05:31] with? So when coming on to the board as a vice president of public relations, that's something I actually was really interested in. What I think is most popular is during our spirit weeks, we post different interactive videos and we show the different spirit days within our spirit week.

[03:05:48] I think our recent spirit week video was during homecoming and I think that got over 2,000 views and was something that was constantly reposted and I definitely believe that led to more student participation which overall created more student spirit and community within our school. That's awesome. Thank you. And then my other question is one of the bullet points was up there about student input on the shift to the international baccalaureate program or including that. So I'm curious what some of the student feedback on that was and how it informed how the program was created or stood up at Loudoun Valley.

[03:06:25] So last year, at the end of the year, the director for the IB program came in and asked us about, you know, this is something that we're going to shift into. How might that look for you students? And explaining how it might look for us.

[03:06:42] And he wanted to go over kind of the syllabus. And we went through the different examples and made sure that it made sense to somebody reading it. And if there were different discrepancies, things that might have contradicted themselves, we were able to point that out.

[03:07:05] If there are things we didn't understand on a student perspective, we wrote down questions and said, I don't know what that means. And we sent that back to the coordinator and he was able to edit as needed.

[03:07:22] Okay, thank you so much. Absolutely. Board members, do you have any additional questions? Ms. Ogadegbe. Thank you, and thank you so much for this presentation. It's always, I think, one of the best parts of this job is hearing from the students, so thank you for coming.

[03:07:38] My question this evening is around the cell phone policy that was put into place in your school, if one of you can kind of speak to the input that you had and what the protocols are now. I know that that's something that I think unanimously the current board is very interested in addressing, and I think we'll probably come up with the next board, but curious for those who are listening or watching what has been done in your school.

[03:08:02] Thank you. I think one of the main things is it's really encouraging the students to interact with each other more, and I think a lot of the students were really upset about the cell phone policy. There's like, I want to be in my phones all the time. Obviously, being on their phones is distracting and not getting into academics as much, but I think it's really encouraging more leadership within the school, too, with everyone being more interested in what they're learning, wanting clubs to start.

[03:08:32] It's also interesting to see how many more clubs have started since the cell phone policy is implemented because it's really encouraging all the students to be involved and to just want to interact with each other a lot more. And just one follow-up question. So what were the protocols that were enacted for your school?

[03:08:53] Basically, the guidelines are that we have to put our phones away, and we have little cell phone pockets that we put our phones in at the beginning of every class, except for during lunchtime. Thank you.

[03:09:09] Of course. Mr. Mahedby. Thank you, Chair. I'll echo my board members' comments. I always get to hear from the students directly and from the leadership. I mean, I wouldn't just call you students, but I think you guys reflect the leadership from Loudoun Valley. And thank you, Dr. Ross, and I think we also have Mr. Adams sitting back there, too, for stepping up and taking the IB programs at your schools, too.

[03:09:32] I don't have a question. I think they already asked a question. But what I heard from you guys are, you know, again, collaboration, communication, empathy, inclusion, leadership. And those are the skills we're looking for students. So, again, we have a lot of press here, but I just want to bring it back, attention to the quality of leadership LCPS is bringing, Dr. Ross, your leadership.

[03:09:54] This is the future, not the rhetoric we hear about Loudoun County public school system. This is an amazing school district, and you guys are amazing. And I can't be more happy to see the future of Loudoun County and your future. And, again, credit go to the administration, to the staff who is here, who is helping facilitating that.

[03:10:12] So I just want to leave with that also. So it's not just about everything you hear. This is the leadership, I know, just to share with the press, too. So thank you, Dr. Ross, and thank you, students, for coming and sharing that. Any additional questions or comments? Well, Mr. Mejedevi said it perfectly, I think.

[03:10:29] Thank you all so much for being here today. Thank you so much for all the work that you do, the support you give our students, and to you students, thank you for being here tonight. I'm sure there's no place you'd rather be. Thank you. Thank you for your support, board. Thank you. We're now going to move to item 10 on our agenda, which is comments from our student school board representatives.

[03:10:58] And we have two returning with us tonight for their second meeting. And so without further ado, first I'll turn it over to Krupskaya Arguello-Gomez from Parkview High School. Good evening, school board members, good administrators, teachers, parents, and fellow community members.

[03:11:18] Buenas noches, miembros de la consejo escolar, amnestores, escolares, maestros, padres, y otros miembros de la comunidad. I would like to thank my advisors, Mr. Bailey and Ms. Primus, the staff, and my principal, Dr. Jefferson, and the school board members for granting me this honor to speak on behalf of Parkview High School once again.

[03:11:38] I would also like to thank my fellow peers and my parents for being here to support me. Me gustaría comenzar agradeciendo a mis asesores, Señor Bailey y Señora Primus, los empleados y mi director, Dr. Jefferson, miembros de la Junta Escolar por concederme esta oportunidad por una segunda vez de hablar en nombre de la Escolar Secundaria Parkview Hike.

[03:12:06] También me gustaría agradecer a mis compañeros y a mis padres por estar aquí para apoyarme esta noche. My name is Kripskaya Arguello. Today, I would like to highlight our school sports club events, but also summer topics. Parkview High School hosted our homecoming on October 28th with a glow-in-the-dark theme, amazing games, and fantastic music.

[03:12:28] Starting this week, we have canned teachers. Students bring in non-perishable food and place them in one of the cans carts in the cafeteria. The cans that are counted and the teachers with the most cans wears a turkey costume before Thanksgiving break. All cans will be donated to a pine tree for local families.

[03:12:46] In more somber news, recently we had an assembly for students to learn more about the dangers of phenyl and bring more awareness to the school community. Parkview, like other students in Launa County and nationwide, are dealing with the fallout of this terrible drug. Parkview students are not only afraid to voice their opinions over certain topics around the world.

[03:13:04] For instance, last week students from across the county, including Parkview, participated in a walk-on in support of Palestine. Moving forward to our Parkview Athletics, the athletic team participation this fall has increased across the board. Our athletes are working hard this year.

[03:13:20] We want to thank our fall athletes and coaches for some great experience this fall in season, excited to see what winter season brings. Our fall season had a huge accomplishment with 13 of our athletes named to all Cacton district teams and two athletes in all region.

[03:13:35] For our field hockey, coach Monica Szymanski was named Cocktonic District Co-Coach of the Year. Parkview implemented Athlete of the Week this school year, which became very popular with our student-athletes. A few clubs I would like to mention is our Red Cross Club, English Honor Society, and National Art Honor Society.

[03:13:57] This month, the Red Cross Club with the UN Health Organization is having our vaccinate a village fundraiser where we raise funds to provide measles and rubella vaccinations for underserved communities. This year, our goal is $1,000 or more. So far, our class has raised $1,260.

[03:14:14] Each dollar raised provides a measles or rubella vaccine for a child. Since 2001, this program has provided over 3 billion vaccinations and has reduced the death rate of measles by 94 worldwide percent. For our National English Society, NEHS is offering a lunch and learn college essay writing clinic next week in the library and are also gearing up for our November Music and Poetry Coffee House.

[03:14:40] We will also gain more EL help volunteers to serve as assistants in our EL classes. With the athletic department, the National Art Honor Society will be partnering to host the second annual Breakfast with Santa community event on December 9th. This event really brings out our community of all greats together.

[03:14:59] Our high school athletes will be working this event. We had a large turnout last year and expect even more this year. Each elementary and middle school student that attends gets to meet Santa and gets a present. Last year, the National Art Honor Society gift-wrapped over 400 donated toys that were handed out to children for the community during the event instead of a free face painting station.

[03:15:22] Lastly, AVID is a credit program that stands for Advancement via Individual Determination. It is also a course that assess first-generation students in college preparatory electives focusing on writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and critical reading skills to build and enhance college readiness and professional life.

[03:15:40] Our school has a population of 71% Hispanics and 2% of students that are from different countries. The language barrier is already difficult between students and teachers, but the most difficult task is keeping them in school. Some parents teach children to work hard in jobs and face the importance of building a stable career immediately after high school.

[03:16:00] Moreover, some students are not encouraged to pursue a higher education or even taught how to go about achieving success throughout their academic career. I've been part of AVID since middle school for my four years of high school. From participating in food drives, fundraising, and service projects to visit different colleges, and AVID helped pave a pathway to success.

[03:16:22] Not only did it teach me fundamental skills such as public speaking organizations, executive functioning, punctuation, and career planning, but it also influenced me to serve others in my community. However, next year, students will have the same opportunity as I have enjoyed.

[03:16:41] This is the last year that AVID is offered in Loudoun County, and this year is only for graduating seniors. Campus program will remain, it is an excellent program, yet doesn't provide the same rigor and experience AVID has. So again, I want to give a big thank you for the school board members, my principal, my advisors, for giving me this opportunity to speak with you all this evening.

[03:17:03] Nuevamente quiero agradecer a todos los miembros de la Junta Escolar, a mi director y a mis accesores por darme una oportunidad de hablar con todos ustedes esta noche. Thank you. And second, we have Caroline Tulungan from Heritage High School.

[03:17:27] Good evening, everyone. My name is Caroline Tulungan. I'm a senior at Heritage High School, and I'm honored to be invited back to the school board to share with you about my school tonight. Narrowing down what to talk about at this meeting was such a difficult task because Heritage is a place where there's no lack of opportunities for students.

[03:17:44] I'm incredibly grateful for the staff who consistently dedicates their time to making sure that this school is a safe and welcoming environment for every person. As well as looking out for students, various organizations within Heritage have recently been focusing on giving back to the community. In particular, our NHS is currently hosting a drive for Toys for Tots, accepting new and unwrapped toys to be donated. Later in the year, they will have their annual blood drive. Another club I want to highlight is No Place for Hate, an organization that focuses on fostering a warm and welcoming environment for all students and staff. Recently, they have

[03:18:22] been taking pledges from students to promise to contribute to their efforts of keeping the school safe and free of hate. In other news, the theater department has been extremely busy with their fall play, The Tempest, which opened this past weekend. Taking a classic Shakespeare story and modernizing it to take place during Hurricane Katrina, our student writing team worked throughout the summer and now their product has come to life in a beautiful way. The show will close this weekend, so I urge you to come out and see it. Also in performing arts news, our advanced theater class recently directed and performed the one-act play, The Poe Asylum, at the VHSL competition.

[03:19:01] Later in the year, be on the lookout for our winter and spring musicals, the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and Matilda, which will be our critiqued Cappies show. I would now like to take a moment to recognize some of our outstanding teams and individual students who have had some recent notable achievements.

[03:19:18] First of all, our Heritage Pride cheer squad came in third out of Virginia at their competition at VCU, placing highest in all of our school's history. Next, our Heritage Marching Band recently competed at the U.S. Band's National Competition, placing fifth in the nation and first for Music Effect with a score of 95.

[03:19:39] As well as this, runners Ellison Downey and Michael Tartaglione competed at the state cross-country meet at Oatlands last Saturday. One last recognition I want to mention is a unique one that is so special to our school. It's called the Be the Light Award. Each year, we receive t-shirts from the Bryn Wurtz Ballet Foundation to highlight wonderful students who represent kindness and compassion, honoring the memory of Bryn, who was a member of the Pride.

[03:20:05] This year, 15 students were recognized in her memory, and we are so thankful for this opportunity to promote goodness in our community. We are so incredibly proud of all of our hardworking students, athletes, and performers who do such a beautiful job representing the Pride.

[03:20:20] To close, I want to give one last thank you to everyone who has supported me as I finish off my senior year. To the Heritage staff, admin, to my family and friends, and to the school board. I would not be up here today without you, so thank you, good night, and roar pride. Thank you both for your comments here tonight. Really appreciate you being with us again.

[03:20:48] Next on our agenda is item 11, the superintendent's report. Dr. Spence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. It's certainly my pleasure to share some good news from around the division. Starting with, I'd like to welcome Dr. Michelle Campiglia as Willard Middle School's next principal.

[03:21:06] Most recently, Dr. Campiglia was the principal of Alexandria City High School's International Academy. Previously, she served as assistant principal at Justice High School in Herndon High, both in Fairfax County. She has a bachelor's degree in foreign affairs and French from the University of Virginia, a master's degree in secondary education, ESOL, and bilingual education from George Washington University.

[03:21:29] She has an education specialist degree in administration and supervision from the University of Virginia and a doctorate in administration and supervision also from the University of Virginia. Dr. Cambiglia begins her tenure with LCPS in January, and we welcome her here to Loudoun County.

[03:21:46] I'm also happy this evening to introduce two additional new members of the LCPS team, Clark Seip, who will serve as the Director of Sustainability, and Kevin West, who will serve as Executive Principal for Elementary. Clark comes to LCPS from the non-profit world, most recently as the Executive Director of the Community Coalition for Haiti.

[03:22:04] Previously, she was the Director of Programs for START International, which is a non-profit focused on supporting environmental resilience in developing countries. She has a Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Science from UVA and a Master's Degree in Geography from Penn State. Kevin comes to LCPS from Fairfax County Public Schools, where he's been the Principal of Sunrise Valley Elementary since 2014.

[03:22:25] He's also served as the principal of George Mason Elementary in Alexandria City Public Schools and as a teacher and administrator at school divisions in Virginia and Arizona. Mr. West has a bachelor's degree in political science from JMU, a master's in education from Marymount, and a postgraduate certificate in education administration from Arizona State University.

[03:22:44] So we welcome both Clark and Kevin to Loudoun County. Next, congratulations to Heritage High School and Loudoun Valley High School. These two schools, in addition to everything else that you heard about tonight, have been officially authorized as international baccalaureate world schools offering the IB diploma program. This achievement is a testament to the dedication and hard work of the school communities including students, parents, teachers, and staff. The IB curriculum encourages critical thinking, creativity, and a deep understanding of the world around us. It fosters an environment where students are empowered to become lifelong learners and responsible global citizens.

[03:23:23] Implementing the IB program is aligned to the LCPS strategic plan to expand opportunities through diverse programming. The IB program will be fully implemented in the 25-26 school year with the first class of IB diploma candidates. Let me just say what an amazing event the Wild Student Leadership Conference you've heard some about tonight was.

[03:23:44] It was wonderful last week to see so many young people come together with the intent of making a difference in their schools and communities. This is the second annual event, and gathered there were more than 300 LCPS high school students who came together to learn and cultivate leadership skills, which they will now take back to their schools.

[03:24:03] I look forward to more opportunities to engage with dedicated student leaders like those I met at this event. LCPS partner Inova Loudon recently hosted more than 50 students from Parkview and Potomac Falls High Schools for its Dream Big program.

[03:24:20] This program, which is for high school juniors, introduces them to health care job opportunities. During the event, students learned more about Inova's heart and vascular unit and physical therapy unit, and they participated in a hands-on trauma class called Stop the Bleed. In addition, they met with Inova's staff, who answered their questions about careers in health care.

[03:24:41] On October the 18th, Blue Ridge Middle School honored 44 music students who were inducted into the school's very first Tri-M Music Honor Society. Tri-M is a significant community for academically successful students who have a passion for and talent in music. By participating in performances and community service, the members of Tri-M develop confidence, creativity, critical thinking, compassion, and a host of other leadership skills that will add to their overall success as a student. So congratulations to these students on their achievements. I'm pleased to tell you that Belmont Ridge, Brambleton Middle, Farmwell

[03:25:20] Station, Riverbend, and Smarts Mill were recognized as schools of distinction by the Association for Middle Level Education, which is an organization dedicated to supporting middle school educators. Only 23 schools of distinction were recognized nationwide, with five of them right here in Loudoun County. These exceptional schools serve as model middle schools, providing valuable professional learning opportunities and best practices for other middle schools. Congratulations to these schools and their amazing staff. I'm also pleased to note that five LCPS schools, Cardinal Ridge Elementary, Legacy Elementary, J. Michael Lunsford Middle School, Riverside High

[03:26:00] School, and Rockridge High School have been awarded the Purple Star for the 2023-24 school year. The Purple Star Award is presented to schools that demonstrate military-friendly practices and a commitment to military-connected students and their families. In addition to these five schools earning the Purple Star Award this year, seven additional schools in Loudoun County have received the Purple Star Award previously, including Belmont Ridge Middle, Brambleton Middle, Madison's Trust Elementary, Riverbend Middle, Stonehill Middle, Trailside Middle, and Willard Middle Schools. Thank you to these schools for their commitment to our military-connected students

[03:26:37] and their families. I'd like to recognize that at the 2023 Loudoun History Awards celebration on November 5th, LCPS, along with Loudoun County Parks and Recreation and the Douglas High School Commemorative Committee, was recognized for accomplishments in preserving the historic Douglas High School education and development campus and helping to interpret the history of Loudoun County. And then finally, at last week's annual legislative breakfast, I was pleased to join Loudoun County School Board members as they presented the 2024 legislative program to Loudoun's

[03:27:12] general assembly delegation. This event gave us the opportunity to address some of the issues happening in our community and to highlight how our elected officials can support our students and their families. I look forward to continued engagement and support from Loudoun County's representatives. Thank you Mr. Chairman that concludes this report. Thank you Dr. Spence.

[03:27:33] That will bring us to items 12 and 13. 12 being the public hearing on the elementary school attendance zones for Henrietta Lacks Elementary and item 13 being general public comment. So I want to thank everyone here for engaging with the school board through the public comment process.

[03:27:56] The school board welcomes comments from Loudoun County residents and community members and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system. Speakers must limit comments to the time allotted. Based on the number of speakers tonight which is 35 all told and the agenda this evening all speakers for both the public hearing and public comment have been allotted two minutes each for public for their remarks please be advised that speakers who missed 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

[03:28:34] school board at all times please remain seated unless arriving departing speaking at the podium or during a break. Violations of civility, decorum, and respect include shouting, heckling, jeering, applause, or other noise which disrupts or delays the meeting, obstructing speakers from being able to see the school board and vice versa, interrupting speakers, attempting to speak when not called to do so by the chair, and approaching a speaker or otherwise attempting to intimidate, disparage, or distract a speaker, staff member, or other meeting attendees. Speakers should refrain from vulgarity, obscenities, profanity, or other like breaches of respect, nor may speakers target,

[03:29:13] criticize, or attack individual students during public comment. Speakers should communicate those concerns to their school principal or an appropriate school official. Additionally, complaints regarding division employees should be directed to the school principal or an appropriate school division official. Speakers should face the dais and direct their comments to the school board. Per LCPS policy, members of the school board will not answer questions or respond directly to the public during the public comment period. Violations of decorum or civility by any meeting attendee may result in the chair directing staff to remove the attendee from the

[03:29:50] remainder of the meeting. Repeated or persistent violations of decorum or civility by the audience may result in on the decision of the chair, public comment being tabled until a later point in the meeting's agenda, limiting the number of attendees in the meeting room during public comment for safety reasons, or the public comment period ending for the evening. Copies of materials for board members should be given to the public information officer in the media box at the back of the boardroom prior to the start of the meeting. Please provide 12 copies of materials. Under no circumstances may a speaker approach the dais. The public is reminded that access to school

[03:30:27] board meetings is also available through LCPS-TV, on Comcast Channel 18, and Verizon Fios Channel 43. The live stream of the meeting may be viewed also on the LCPS TV website. So we're going to begin with the public hearing on the elementary school attendance zones. We have eight speakers signed up for that. The first speaker is Babu Majanti, to be followed by Manoj

[03:30:53] Singh. Mr. Majanti? Yeah. Okay, go ahead. Thanks. Can you hear me? Hi, I'm Babu Majanti. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am from new Heartland community which everybody thinks it is not part of LCPS because we were, before moving to community, the school zone that is assigned to us within three mile radius for both elementary, middle school and high school. And they have walking trails for kids to go there to

[03:31:30] the school. But once we move into the community the LN Domson has been assigned. We are fine with it rezoning. Now my both daughters, one is in kindergarten, another one is second grade. We're getting rezoned again to Harvard School by dividing one school to K23 and next one to 325, I guess. And that is like 4.7 miles from the home. Three miles, it moved to 4.2 miles, now to 4.7 miles. As per the LCPS policies, right, it is written in the policies itself that adjacent neighborhood goes to Madison Trust,

[03:32:06] we go to some other school, I don't understand why. And communities all should be going to the same school which is not followed and also there is no reasonable walking zones to new school assignments which is far from the current home school that's supposed to be assigned which is less than three miles even though also you're split in the communities neighborhood is part of some other school and we are part of some other school within our community it is divided into two schools as well there's no stability as well for our kids we don't know why because when the

[03:32:41] community was built it should have been thought through that there will be a lot of kids or communities houses right should be counted through which is not even considered so we're requesting everybody to consider our kids on bring some stability so that they can someday come like the students here and speak in front of the public about the what lcp has done very good about it that's all i have to say thank you very much for giving the opportunity thank you manoj singh Please refrain from applause during public comment and the public hearing.

[03:33:13] Thank you. Manoj Singh, to be followed by Satish Kandagaglia. Satish Kandagaglia, to be followed by Tarun Mishra.

[03:33:32] Good evening, board members. My name is Satish Kandagaglia, and I'm a parent of two elementary kids in District 08, which is the heartland community. I'm here to strongly disapprove the plan 762, a rezoning of DS08 from Elaine Thompson Elementary School to Hoverter Elementary School.

[03:33:55] The reason, I have the following reasons. A lot of families moved to the DS08 Heartland community having their kindergarten kid already complete their school from some other school district, whether it is in Virginia or outside of Virginia. They had Elaine Thompson assigned as a first grade.

[03:34:14] Now with the new proposal, what this means is a student who is going to second grade is obviously going to the new Hovater Elementary School. And then after that, third to fifth grade, it will be Henrietta Lacks Elementary School.

[03:34:30] So again, I want to question the committee, how is this providing stability to the kids? As per LCPS guidelines, policy 6530, the three main things as per the policy is proximity, stability, and then also cluster alignment.

[03:34:48] And I don't see how this is even adhering to any of these guidelines. Proximity-wise, we're closer to Madison Trust Elementary School. The next closest school is Elaine Thompson. So, again, I really want to question the committee how this proposal has been adopted, is being considered.

[03:35:10] It's basically mentally disturbing the parents, emotionally hurting the students. and I strongly disapprove this. I want the committee to reconsider this, especially for District 08 kids, because we want our kids to be successful, not be a failure.

[03:35:31] Having this really puts them into a failure path. So please consider this. Thank you. Thank you. Tarun Mishra to be followed by Chris McGrath. Chris McGrath to be followed by Swati Austin.

[03:35:54] Thank you, board. My name is Chris McGrath. I'm a resident of the Heartland community. I have two children, a third and fourth grader at Lane Thompson. My fourth grader has been subjected to the following educational journey. He was a COVID kindergartner. He worked a hybrid first grade schedule, second grade at a new school, third grade rezone to another new school. And it wasn't until fourth grade that he finally had a sense of community and consistency. He literally said to us on the first day of school, he was so excited because he would know friends on the first day. This represents most, if not all, of the kids who we are speaking for tonight. The administration's proposed changes would make this the fourth school in five years. This would also be the

[03:36:32] same group that is guaranteed disruption in high school, with the new opening of the school on Evergreen Mill. Knowing this is a guarantee, why are we not focusing on keeping cluster alignments for these students and mitigating yet another change? Why are we not planning for future school openings and only focusing one to three years out? Why are we subjecting them to more uncertainty, more stress, more disruption, and more educational inconsistency. Do these callous changes enable LCPS to live the mission of empowering all students to make meaningful contributions to the world? Or does it create a group of students who only know uncertainty and lack of community?

[03:37:05] One solution that was thrown out was, we'll just let the fifth graders stay there. That's all well and good, but you don't provide transportation. Also, if there's a younger sibling, like most of in our community have, that also doesn't work. I offer three solutions. One, a phased out matriculation plan this is complicated and can be very complex to put forward but i think it deserves an actual look at it instead of doing the easy thing and just rezoning us number two i hate to make the suggestion but can we consider rezoning of another another district i'm sorry another community the meadows or nicholson farm those two communities are smaller they are closer

[03:37:45] to route 50 and they're at full capacity this gives you a better ability to predict student student enrollment versus Heartland, which has still homes to be built and to be moved into. Therefore, you have less predictability. At a minimum, we ask that you guarantee and maintain cluster alignment for the Heartland Zone. Thank you. Thank you. Swati Austin to be followed by Erin White. Good evening, board members, and thank you for your time. My name is Swati Austin. I'm a parent of two Elaine Thompson Tiger Sharks. Can the parents of the Heartland students in the room

[03:38:24] please raise their hands? These, along with us joining virtually, are just a fraction of the parents whose children are going to be who have faced upheaval in the recent years navigating a global pandemic learning how to manage an unprecedented amount of anxiety and stress and on top of it adjusting to new ways of attending school and learning. Adding a third school to our community within just four years would introduce a new level of disruption that could significantly impact our community's well-being and their academic and social well-being. Within Elaine Thompson Elementary, a cohesive and supportive community for our students has emerged, not only

[03:39:01] amongst the students, but also amongst the staff. This team plays a fundamental role in our children's ability to navigate the complexities of their formative years. The teachers, the administrators, the special needs staff, the counselors at Elaine Thompson have dedicated themselves to helping our students navigate these important and formidable times. Our current third and fourth graders who commenced their learning during the pandemic have already faced significant upheaval, having to have been abruptly pulled out of their schooling in 2020. Given the challenges they've had to overcome, we question the necessity of subjecting them to another major change through rezoning. You yourselves, during the October 10th board meeting, acknowledged the recent and potential school

[03:39:39] transiency for some of Hovater Elementary's youngest students. It was recommended with the backing of the Department of School Leadership, the Department of Teaching and Learning, and the Department of Support Services that the grade two students for the 24-25 academic year remain at Hovater Elementary rather than attend Henry de Lacks for their second grade year, preventing them from changing their schools multiple times during the first year, four years of elementary school.

[03:40:03] I ask why this consideration is not also being given to our Heartland students who will also be changing their schools multiple times within their first four years. We implore you to consider the holistic impact of rezoning, not only to the individual, but also to the families of Heartland. Thank you. Thank you. Erin White to be followed by Andrea Lambert. Hi, my name is Erin White and I appreciate the opportunity to speak today. First, I want to thank all the Heartland parents that are here and also the many more that have committed to dialing in online because this is an important

[03:40:43] topic, especially for our kids. Like everyone else before me has said, our children are COVID elementary kids. I have a fourth grader and a second grader at Elaine Thompson. With a change to Hovater, this will be my fourth grader's fifth school in her elementary career, three of those schools while living at heartland she's been through madison's trust she's been through elaine thompson and now hovatter three schools for my second grade are going into third grade although covet affected all elementary kids all kids across the county what we have seen is how that change

[03:41:20] and changing each year has affected their maturity their ability to embrace their community and to learn. Our first year at Elaine Thompson, it took my daughter a good like two months or so to really kind of get into things, to come out of her shell, to start talking to people. That second year at Elaine Thompson, it was like the summer went by in a blink. You know, she was day one ready to go, feeling confident, feeling comfortable. And that first month is when you're doing all your standardized testing and everything. So we've seen the impact that switching between schools so many

[03:41:55] times has on her emotional stability, her relationships with friends, her school scores, and her grades. We leaned into ETS's call for community, their house system, the fact that you would be in a house for the entirety of your elementary school life. This was a big deal and there was so much push behind building a community that it's really hard for us to tell our kids that you have to leave now. Both my kids have been crying at night because they're upset they have to leave. What everyone else has brought up, fairness. We're looking for fairness. Ms. Lambert is going to talk more about the 6530 policy and how we don't feel that's being applied appropriately

[03:42:33] to Heartland. Thank you. Thank you. And our final speaker for the public hearing is Andrea Lambert. Hi, Andrea Lambert, and I have a third and a fourth grader at Elaine Thompson. I do want to start with 6530 in which four of the five policies do not seem to be being applied fairly to our Heartland students proximity and accessibility being two of those we've already talked about the drivability not only are we moving further away but they are moving

[03:43:11] us through busier and more complicated roadways and highways to get to these schools the third being stability which many people have already touched on there was a comment made in the 1019 meeting that it looks like the Heartland residents may have moved a couple times but they really haven't I think through everybody else speaking and we also acknowledge that our children's moves have not all been because of Loudoun County but moving forward they are your responsibility to keep them from moving

[03:43:43] around and then the cluster alignment our children are going to be 17 percent of kids moving into middle and high school that won't know anybody they will be the only kids from their elementary school moving into those middle and high schools not with their elementary school kids from Hovetter and Henrietta Lacks. I've used the Virginia Tech tool. I did not see a way to propose a matriculated transition, so I was very happy to hear that talked about earlier. And that's what I'd like to ask for today. If the projection for the overcrowding is at 120% by 2029, I'm a little

[03:44:23] concerned as to why we're pulling them right now. They started this school. They chose the mascot. They are in their class color houses. They've built a reputation with the staff, the administrative, and the teachers. And they have placed their elementary education identity there, not to mention the school merch that we will have to, again, buy.

[03:44:49] Yeah, these kids specifically, oh, am I out? Thank you. Thank you. And thank you all for coming tonight. And we apologize for having to reschedule the public hearing from last week. So we're now going to switch to general public comment, and we're going to start with our in-person speakers.

[03:45:08] The first speaker is Sandy Sullivan, to be followed by Brenda Bengston. Good evening. I'm Sandy Sullivan, an elementary school teacher who currently serves as a member of the Loudoun Education Association as their president.

[03:45:27] Policy 7030, staff time schedules, is before you again. I know we all do believe that our policies and communication should be accurate and meaningful on a more than occasional basis. language as it stands in the current policy uses the term at times to define how often supervisors may assign additional duties in meetings. Perhaps changing at times to occasionally reduces the possible number of additional requirements, but what is needed is a limit and reasonableness.

[03:45:54] Employee morale is at an all-time low. When will educators have the time they need to do the critical work in front of them without additional requirements? Regarding the staff collective Bargaining Resolution. In your resolution to create a resolution for collective bargaining you created your own timelines and rules. None of your timelines and rules have been created to amplify employee voices. You've hired your educators for our experience and expertise but you refused to listen to us. You have blocked us from buildings. You have put expiration dates on our authorization cards. You have left us out of the conversation about the collective bargaining resolution. Last month in less than a week we collected

[03:46:32] over 1,000 signatures from over 60 worksites, showing that employees want LEA to have access to worksites and to meet with their union. We shared that with Dr. Spence. Your draft currently in the L&P committee drastically restricts the rights of LEA to gather with their own members. Further, your draft has cut out a large swath of confidential employees.

[03:46:51] Every single person who works in the following departments is prohibited from unionizing and bargaining, HRTD, business and finance, Department of Digital Innovation. There are lot of support staff in these departments who are underpaid and undervalued and deserve the opportunity of collective bargaining. How long is it going to take to implement something that is so wanted by employees? Bring the LEA to the table to fix the draft collective bargaining language at the next LNP meeting. Respect your employees. Listen to our expertise. No decisions

[03:47:21] about us without us. Thank you. Brenda Bengston to be followed by Suzanne Satterfield. To the outgoing school board. Thanks for serving during trying times. Our newly elected board reflects the desires of voters for common sense, not culture wars. A new member says, we will not be scared or threatened into silence in the face of attitudes and priorities that do not better the lives of our

[03:48:01] children or represent the values and morals of the majority of our community. The new majority embraced DEI and SEL. Extremist fervor can be erased by reason. Public schools always included parents. CRT was never taught and recalls failed. Teachers, librarians, and marginalized students never deserved to be targeted by a governor. Billboards that harassed citizens did not work.

[03:48:35] bathrooms were not a top issue. Book bans were not favored. We won't have to listen to an adult read high school level books that he dislikes from this dais. Doing so in front of a kindergartner this summer was creepy. Parents reign supreme caused damage when the governor turned our county into a self-serving culture war battleground.

[03:49:03] A November 6th post promoting an extremist gun group which profits off weapons disguised as toys was not a silver bullet. Public schools are at the core of our community.

[03:49:21] Yes, we face challenges, yet harmony is what Loudon voted for, not hostility. Teachers and students want to be safe, teach and learn in peace. And let's give peace a chance. Thank you. Suzanne Satterfield to be

[03:49:43] followed by Jennifer Siren. Excuse me. Go right ahead. Parents in the community have asked for LCPS staff in the school board to be transparent, improve communications and trust. The superintendent and the current school board have said they'd comply, but we aren't seeing an improvement.

[03:50:14] I attended the P&L meeting last Thursday. The meeting was adjourned before the next meeting date was decided. Then Reser, Sorokin, Beatty, and Erica stayed in the room chatting along with April Chandler. I was waiting outside the room with a local reporter to speak to school board members on the committee. Then an LCPS employee walked up to the reporter and told him he had to leave. Why? She then closed the door of the conference room. Why did she do that when there were still board members inside having a discussion after the meeting was adjourned? I've come to find out that they had been discussing the next meeting date. Isn't that a FOIA violation? We are just over

[03:50:52] 60 days into the hiring of Spence and Chief of Communications, Allen, and it's pretty much the same smoke and mirrors. More listening sessions with admin holding the pen. The majority of the admin staff doesn't wear any ID. At the Woodgrove session, the LCPS employee at my table holding the pen didn't state her name or position, just said she was from central office. So much for transparency.

[03:51:16] When parents were stating their concerns they wanted written down early in the exercise, she stopped them and requested that they think more globally before offering additional thoughts under hopes and dreams section. Our group was not allowed to finish reading our comments aloud as the clock was apparently running out.

[03:51:35] 9-1-1 calls of fentanyl overdoses at our schools have been happening and the superintendent claims he was not aware of many of them. How can that be? Isn't it the job of the communications department to track all news and public information happenings within our schools and report to the superintendent and senior staff?

[03:51:54] Spence met with Sheridan and the principal at Parkview and other staff on October 12th, the day that there was an overdose. How could they not be aware of that? Thank you. Jennifer Siren to be followed by Jessica Kirkland.

[03:52:15] Good evening. I'm Jennifer Siren. I have two children in LCPS schools, and I'm a teacher at LCPS. The Virginia Minor Consent Requirement Laws grant minors as young as 14 the legal right to object to both inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment and substance abuse treatment.

[03:52:38] For a child to receive treatment, both the parent and the child must consent. If a child objects, the parents must seek a judicial hearing. Another section of the Code of Virginia, which regulates emergency services, requires that a child as young as 14 who's physically capable of giving consent provide consent prior to being transported to a hospital to receive medical treatment. In other words, a 14-year-old child in eighth grade who's high on drugs at school cannot be required to get into an ambulance to seek medical treatment unless the child is unconscious. So if a parent or the emergency

[03:53:16] contact on file cannot pick up the child quickly and monitor the child at home, the child stays at school where administrators and nurses are left to monitor the health and safety of the child. These laws, in tandem with a lack of recovery schools, create significant challenges to safety and learning in our public schools. Tonight I'm asking you to convene listening sessions with school administrators and nurses to develop an understanding of policies, regulations, and laws which need to be modified or put in place to address the crisis at hand. I'm asking you to

[03:53:52] build local and state networks to identify and create resources to support our most vulnerable students. Yesterday at 9 p.m. the period to provide cover comment to the Virginia Commission of Youth regarding minor consent requirement laws closed and I'm wondering if the school board offered any input. Thank you. Jessica Kirkland to be followed by Lexi Maxwell. Hello I'm Jessica Kirkland. I'm

[03:54:29] also a parent of two LCPS children and an LCPS teacher. My colleagues and I spoke to the school Board in May of this year about the mounting drug crisis facing our school and the need for LCPS to take action. Sadly, our concerns went unheard until a news story was recently published revealing the high numbers of student overdoses we have experienced. We are here tonight to reiterate the same requests we made in May of this year in hopes that they will be taken seriously this time. We reiterate that LCPS must review and revise its regulations and policies regarding student possession and use of drugs at school. The current solution for a student experiencing

[03:55:09] multiple incidents of medical emergency due to using drugs at school or, as is often the case, coming to school under the influence of drugs is increasing days of ISR for each incident. This is not a solution. We must create and fund alternative placement options for students in drug crisis where they can receive substance abuse support, academic support and increased supervision that can't be provided in their homeschool setting. This is for the benefit not only of students experiencing addiction and crisis, but for the students and staff in schools who are left to cope with the emotional impact and fallout of repeatedly

[03:55:48] witnessing or providing life-saving measures to students in acute drug-adduced medical distress. We will return to speak with the new school board as well to make it clear that inaction toward this crisis is not an option. Pretending this crisis does not exist in schools until it makes the news is not an option. The students, staff, and families of LCPS deserve and demand better. Thank you.

[03:56:15] Lexi Maxwell to be followed by Liz Thomas. Liz Thomas to be followed by Corey Brunet. Corey Brunet to be followed by Emily McCord. Good evening. I'm Corey Brunet. I'm an English learner teacher at Broad Run High School and LEA vice president. I am speaking to you tonight about

[03:56:50] employee morale and vacancy rates. December 2021 was the last time resignations were included in board docs. LEA raised this concern in January of 2022 and we were told by HRTD that division council recommended the removal of these reports as they were optional. Why the secrecy? Why not be forthright in reporting to the public what is happening in LCPS? For a school division that touts transparency, we aren't very transparent. I firmly believe that the resignation and retirement reports would paint a picture of the turnover rate in LCPS, and I believe that is something

[03:57:27] you are trying to hide. I recently requested that LEA submit a Freedom of Information Act request to garner the information on employee turnover and the lists of who has left LCPS since 2021, and that FOIA was denied. Why does no report on resignations and retirements exist? Is this not personnel action that the school board oversees? Who is monitoring turnover? Is that exclusively in the hands of HRTD? Are there no checks and balances on our elected officials? There are over 60 end-of-year job vacancies currently on the HRTD website. We educators need to be treated

[03:58:06] as professionals. Instead, we are treated as disposable, and you consider us lucky to have a job. You have policy 70-30 before you tonight that discusses how much unpaid labor we will have to donate to you. You exclude us from the discussion while you make decisions on how often we are kept beyond our contract day and away from our families. We are not included in the decisions that impact our lives. Bring LEA to the table to fix the draft collective bargaining language at the next LNP meeting. Respect your employees. Listen to our expertise. LCPS will never outperform

[03:58:43] its educators. Thank you. Emily McCord to be followed by Jan Merker. Good evening. I teach Early Childhood Education at Light Ridge High School. I am here tonight to speak against replacing the community-based lab preschools in our high schools with STEP preschools. There are representatives from seven schools here this evening to show support against this proposal.

[03:59:21] The STEP preschools are important and needed, but inappropriate for the high school setting. The proposal you are going to hear was created without input from the ECE programs it would replace. The high schools that have lab preschool programs were built with that in mind. Replacing us with step preschool displaces us to a different classroom, and in schools that are already overcrowded or at capacity, there just is not space. The high school students in our ECE programs with the lab preschools participate in high-quality work-based learning by running the daily operations

[04:00:00] of our preschools. They manage, plan and teach lessons, play with the children, and interact with their families. They try different teaching methods and reflect on their learning, creating a mutually beneficial experience. This setting deepens the bonds and sense of community between our schools and the neighborhoods that we serve. Replacing our programs with STEP preschool would drastically reduce the amount of time our students spend in workplace learning by approximately 75% and would greatly impact the quality of work our students get to produce. The focus on programming in high school buildings should be the high school students and their learning should come first

[04:00:39] which absolutely does not happen in the five schools that already host head start or step partnerships the community-based lab preschools need to stay in place thank you for your time thank you jan merker to be followed by gabriella boucher once again loud and parents have spoken And this is what we said one week ago today.

[04:01:12] We don't co-parent with Moms for Liberty. We don't co-parent with Army of Parents. We don't co-parent with Parents Against Critical Theory. We don't co-parent with hate groups. We don't want book banning.

[04:01:28] We want our kids to learn accurate history. We want Loudoun's LGBT students and students of color to have an environment where they feel safe to learn and thrive. We trust and value our teachers and we know that excellence and inclusion go hand in hand. We expect this board for the remainder of your terms and the incoming board to make policy

[04:01:56] accordingly. Thank you. Thank you. Gabriella Boucher to be followed by Megan O'Meara. Hello my name is Gabriella Boucher. I am a LCPS graduate as well as an LCPS teacher. I'm commenting on information item 1501 on the expansion of the STEP and Head Start preschool programs.

[04:02:22] As a student at Briarwoods High School, I participated in the LCPS's Grow Your Own pathway and now have taught this program for five years at Stonebridge. I am so disturbed about the discussion of changing the private preschool models to Head Start, STEP, or option number three, which has no framework created for it.

[04:02:42] In the private preschool model, the high school students have full-time lab-based learning where their entire class block is spent creating, planning, teaching, and facilitating lessons for preschool students. This is what made this so special to me and gave me the desire to become a teacher.

[04:03:02] I've also experienced what a Head Start and Step program was like and honestly felt so bad for those high school students. The full block of hands-on, lab-based learning that I knew so well was shortened significantly. High schoolers were limited greatly on their interactions with the preschoolers, and they'd absolutely no contact with families and the community.

[04:03:24] Let's not forget that high school classrooms were not created for a preschool. They were created for a lab where high school students are the learners and are exposed to many different experiences through their hands-on work with preschool students. With it being American Education Week, please consider how these changes will affect the community members that participate in our programs, the teachers who have built amazing programs, and most importantly, the high school students who could potentially be the next generation, like me, of LCPS teachers.

[04:03:55] Thank you. Thank you. Megan O'Meara, to be followed by Patricia Caldwell-Wilson. Good evening. Thank you for the district's presence at our school's community meeting on November 4th.

[04:04:15] I am eager to hear more about the resources and actions the district is contemplating in response to the data it has been collecting on opioid-related medical emergencies. As my colleagues and I emphasized at the May 23rd school board meeting, when we became alarmed by signs of chronic opioid abuse among certain students, school is not a clinical setting.

[04:04:39] It is unethical to leave our most vulnerable students hanging and to leave the day-to-day crisis management in the hands of our administration in teachers. They have abundant vigilance and fortitude, but lack the clinical training to sustainably support these students. Repeated visits to in-school restriction, as our current student drug use regulation 8240 dictates, is an unacceptable solution for these students.

[04:05:05] And periodic meetings with our wonderful but overworked student assistant specialists is not enough. Part of the SAS's job is to make referrals for appropriate schools and community-based services. There are no appropriate schools in Loudoun County for students with drug addictions, and I have not yet seen students placed in local clinical settings. LCPS, with its wealth of resources, is still in a position to be a regional, even a national leader for sustainable intervention. There are many models for the intervention that we could undertake. Montgomery

[04:05:41] County's Recovery and Academic Program, Arlington Public Schools Referral Network, and the Recovery high schools in Chesterfield County and Frederick County. You could scale the intervention based on the data you have collected regarding the present and projected need for it among our most vulnerable students. Thank you. Thank you. Patricia Caldwell-Wilson to be followed by Susan Cox. Thank you. I'm

[04:06:16] Patricia Caldwell-Wilson, a retired classroom teacher and K-8 math specialist, and I'm continuing the comments started by my LEA colleagues. I am disgusted that my employer spent over $10,000 working with an anti-worker legal firm developing a collective bargaining resolution instead of working with employees to develop language that benefits all. Is this why your staff felt you needed over $13 million for collective bargaining? Did you ever intend to work with your employees

[04:06:50] and listen to our voices the resolution is a travesty the spirit of working in collaboration and good faith exists nowhere in the 23 pages of the draft resolution this resolution draft works to silence all employee voices the resolution states that collective bargaining is confidential confidentiality is something that the party should discuss as part of the conversation over bargaining ground rules.

[04:07:19] All parties should get to be part of that conversation and should get to have a say in how broad confidentiality rules are. This should not be dictated by collective bargaining resolution.

[04:07:35] For the record, we would like an open and transparent bargaining. We want open bargaining with input from all stakeholders and not something done behind closed doors. Over the last two years, there has been a great deal of talk about transparency and equity, but neither is demonstrated here.

[04:07:55] We must do better than this: student learning conditions or educator working conditions. Rectify this language by working with us and not against us. How long is it going to take to implement something so wanted by employees?

[04:08:11] Bring LEA to the table to fix the draft collective bargaining language at the next L&P meeting. Respect your employees. Listen to our expertise. Susan Cox to be followed by Esther Johnson. I'm here to speak about accountability and transparency again.

[04:08:33] When people are accountable and transparent, they build trust. Superintendent Spence speaks of building trust with the community. Therefore, he should be accountable and transparent. Actions should match words. Don't wait over two weeks to inform parents about fentanyl overdoses and other important issues concerning their children, students, their loved ones. Stick to safety and education. Don't be dismissive of student, parent, and teacher concerns. Stick to basics, the fundamentals, for they are essential and foundational. Literacy is the equalizer. Programs with high dollar costs and fancy names haven't

[04:09:08] helped with literacy rates. As DEI is injected everywhere, unfortunately, so is divisiveness. Division is up, scores are down. Something is not working. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Do what works. We once were a community that wasn't in the news for scandals. We were known for our great schools We can be again with honest ethical transparent and accountable leaderships. We have this opportunity especially with a newly elected school board Don't disappoint and yet again. I am disappointed as I read current headlines about one of the newly elected members

[04:09:46] Violating the Hatch Act whatever her reasons explanation or excuses. I am disappointed. It takes a strong Courageous person to speak up to make positive change any government that makes it a priority To set up a task force that labels parents who advocate for their children as potential domestic terrorists has lost its way We see you we hear you and we very well may conclude the emperor has no clothes no integrity, no common sense. And on the issue of collective bargaining, have you really examined

[04:10:20] all the problems that it may bring? You can be fair without it. Be very cautious. It's a no for me. Thank you. Thank you. Esther Johnson to be followed by Jessica Smith. I'm not going to waste my time introducing myself. I'm a teacher, parent, resident of Loudoun County, so I assume you guys know that all. All right, I'm also the LEA treasurer, and I got dragged into collective bargaining and have really changed my opinion on it hearing all these things. Have you been

[04:10:57] listening to the people? Have you been listening to the comments that have been going on? Do you realize all of these things are things that we could be talking about during our discussions? These are things that need to be resolved during collective bargaining. This is things we could talk about. So here's the deal. Let's talk about your draft resolution. Guys, we want to collaborate.

[04:11:20] we want to be part of this and not as a union but as educators because we want to talk about working conditions all of the resolutions talk about working conditions but limit them severely you guys do realize that educator working conditions are student learning conditions you do know that right that is our whole purpose and our whole goal we want to make sure that we're fairly representing all employees all groups so I just want to talk really quickly about the options that we have in the resolution draft as it has been proposed. Problem with option number one

[04:11:55] is that we're predetermining very precise and specific topics that can be bargained. What's the point to that? Like that's basically saying you can talk about these three things. It's ineffective. Option two doesn't even take in to consider employee voices at all. Option three is still, as it's written, unacceptable, but is the closest to what we think collective bargaining is here's the problem with it when we limit bargaining topics we silence employee voices and there's nine of you and y'all can't agree on things how do you expect the entire

[04:12:29] population of teachers to or educators to to agree that's asking for the secretaries to agree with bus drivers it's really difficult all right fourth option is just terrible but let's try it let us talk can we just talk thanks thank you jessica smith to be followed by brian davison you all have failed in your responsibility to communicate to the parents concerning the overdoses in our

[04:13:08] schools. You all are not being forthright, risking the safety of all students, claiming false confidentiality to hide what is really going on behind locked doors. The medical world calls them overdoses, when realistically they are opioid poisonings that attack the respiratory system.

[04:13:27] Breathing. Once again, why does it take an investigation by Loudoun County Sheriff's Office for parents to become aware of the overdoses, opioid poisonings, that are happening in their student schools.

[04:13:59] Unconscious and not breathing is cardiac arrest. I will never forget just recently performing CPR on someone else's teen who was in the final stages of overdosing where labored breathing became no breathing. I will never forget their eyes that were rolled back, body sweating, limp and lifeless as I moved their head to open their mouth. I will never forget the guttural sound they made with each chest compression. An officer took over the administered Narcan and this teen survived. I assure you any student teacher administrator nurse

[04:14:37] who has had to handle one of these numerous overdoses opioid poisonings are affected by these events of trying to save another's life. Spence you have not improved transparency nor restored our faith in this administration. You should resign. Thank you. Brian Davison to be followed by Kari Michon. Good evening. I see Atusa doesn't even bother to show up now. But it's

[04:15:15] interesting that, Jeff Morris, I saw you applaud the student representative from Parkview as she praised Palestinian terrorists while we have three-year-old American babies being held hostage in her, quote, Palestine. It's interesting y'all's point of view on that. We talk on Title I. During the January 19th question and answer, Tiffany Polifco asked whether Title I funds could be use for students outside the Title I designated schools. Question eight. She raised this question at my behest after your staff has repeatedly put out false information for years on Title I.

[04:15:52] Your staff answered no to her question, repeating a falsehood that to this day they will not correct. The resulting questions are one, whether your staff is so incompetent that they don't understand Title I rules. Section 1113 states that Title I funds may be used at any school whose FRL percentage is greater than the average FRL percentage of the district. A district cannot skip schools by providing funds to like the eighth highest FRL percentage, but skipping the third. But other than that, you can use it for targeted programs, where you use the funds for the kids, or you can use it at school-wide, where if the staff is too lazy to report what they're doing,

[04:16:28] they can just give it to all kids. But you are answering board members' questions falsely. Will you fire these administrators? Next, Sheriff Chapman was responsible enough to raise fentanyl overdose crisis to the public's attention because you would not. You claim student privacy prevented you. Have you notified the overdose victim's family that you released their private and student data as FERPA requires? No, you haven't because FERPA never precluded you from giving the information out. If you thought it was a violation of privacy, you would have told them you released it. And Harris, if you want to solve the problem, why don't you give your student directory information

[04:17:06] to Sheriff Chapman and he will do your job for you because none of you will do it. Thank you. Carrie Michonne to be followed by Sherelle Ashwell. Sherelle Ashwell to be followed by Andrea Weiskopf. Hi, good evening. I'm Sherelle Ashwell. I am a current CTE FACS teacher here in

[04:17:44] Loudoun County and a former parent. We've been recently made aware of the possible change to our current preschool lab model that we would have that we have in the majority of our schools. You've heard from many of my colleagues about the direct impact this would have on our high school students and their hands-on work-based learning opportunities.

[04:18:06] I'm speaking about the impact this program had on my family. Personally, I understand the need to support families in need through Head Start and Step, but we're forgetting about the vast numbers of families that have and will continue to be impacted by our community lab preschools.

[04:18:25] The LCPS Facts Lab Preschool provides a very cost-effective alternative for many Loudoun County families. We were one of those families. 20 years ago, my girls attended Stonebridge High School's preschool. They were little bulldogs.

[04:18:41] Yes, that's right, 20 years ago. They were excited to become little bulldogs. This was our community. This was our neighborhood. Our girls went to sporting events, plays, musicals, and even marched in the homecoming parade as a little bulldog.

[04:18:57] They dressed up as a Stonebridge cheerleader. They were excited to be a part of their community. The sense of community was so clear and continues to be very clear. We could not have afforded to send our daughters to preschool in Loudoun County, not even 20 years ago.

[04:19:16] It was a gift that our family was afforded to be able to participate in a community preschool. I ask you to look at this and bless other families this opportunity as well. with time running short, I beg you to consider keeping our preschool lab preschools with the focus of our high school students. Thank you. Thank you. Andrea Weiskopf to be followed by

[04:19:40] Lee Stewart. Insler Dare is a boutique law firm that represents the interest of management.

[04:20:01] They offer workshops such as walking the plank, severing the employment relationship, and best practices for firing employees. You didn't consult them when you awarded Eric Williams a longevity bonus moments before he skedaddled out of town.

[04:20:20] You didn't consult them when you let Scott Ziegler walk out with a year's salary and benefits. Nope, you only sought their services when your employees demanded to be treated with respect and recognized for our expertise.

[04:20:37] The LNP committee claims that they hadn't seen the draft agreement until the public did. But if the committee did not help write or even discuss the resolution, why did the committee have so many closed-door meetings about collective bargaining?

[04:20:58] What happened to the draft proposed by the LEA? Did LCPS seek to find common ground with the LEA draft, or was it thrown in the trash? Collective bargaining is about working together toward a common goal with respect.

[04:21:16] Given that Dr. Spence told me he was bargaining against educators and not with educators, and that you have procured the services of an anti-employee law firm, tells me that we do not have a shared vision and that you do not view your employees with respect.

[04:21:37] Tonight, you are again discussing policy 7030 because two members of the HRTD committee decided it was too difficult to come up with language that defined occasionally and specific language would make it too hard to get unpaid labor.

[04:21:57] Black lives matter. Thank you. And Lee Stewart is our final in-person speaker tonight. Hello, my name is Lee Stewart. I'm a Loudoun Valley High School graduate and currently have the privilege of working in the school system as a high school teacher. As a school system, I think we are failing students who are struggling with or on the road to addiction. The current policy does not provide students or staff with the support they need. For their first two

[04:22:34] drug-related incidents, students are given in-school restriction and very little addiction support. That means that instead of helping students get into addiction programs, we are sending them to in-school restriction rooms. In-school restriction teachers do not have the training needed to adequately help students who are dealing with serious addiction issues, nor do they receive the level of pay that addiction specialists deserve. Meanwhile, students are not getting the levels of support they'll need to get better. Counseling sessions with the student

[04:23:09] assistant specialists are not sufficient and nor are many students able to access support on their own. The current policy is not good and therefore needs to be changed as soon as possible. If no current program exists that is accessible to students who need it, then one can and needs to be created. Students should receive significant addiction support and intervention after one drug-related incident, and the support should be focused on harm reduction instead of punishment.

[04:23:42] Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. And that was our final in-person speaker, so we will now begin our virtual speakers. And the first virtual speaker is Sundas Ahmad. We don't have a caller by that name. The next speaker is Scott Pacula. Good evening. Good evening. I'm here to ask for the revival of the Virtual Distance Elementary VDE program. VDE provided high-quality

[04:24:22] synchronous learning that was on par with in-person instruction. Since its cancellation, students who benefited from this program have no alternatives to meet their unique needs. Virtual education has been portrayed as an expensive option to the community, but I believe this not to be true. I would like to call out the elephant in the room.

[04:24:43] A brick-and-mortar school requires a capital expense of somewhere around $50 to $150 million dollars to build, years of planning, and construction. It also requires land on the earth. These buildings require heating, cooling, cleaning, furniture, security, and many other expenses to keep them operational. On top of this, physical schools also need a fleet of school buses to transport students to and from the school. These buildings require complex zoning due to their capacity limitations. In contrast, virtual education has none of these constraints or capital expenses because it's virtual. Its only capital expense is a Chromebook and possibly an internet

[04:25:23] connection. Scaling the program simply requires personnel. Virtual education can offer capacity relief to in-person facilities to Loudoun County's ever-growing population. Bring back virtual distance elementary as an option for students in Loudoun County. Thank you. Thank you. Jani Cho.

[04:25:42] The learning elementary was discontinued. Many families who relied on this fully synchronous program was not able to find an equivalent learning option. Other virtual options has not been the same. My third grader who attends Vava K-12 program gets less time with the teacher.

[04:26:10] It's approximately an hour and 20 minutes per week of synchronous time with the teacher. Students who are attending the virtual distance learning program had decreased mental stress, focused better, improved test scores, helped students who had been bullied in the past, allowed easy medical treatment for medically fragile students, helped decreased chances of overcrowding and drug overdosing in school, provided a better way to connect with teachers and peers and for homebound students.

[04:26:47] even had more interactions with teachers this is also cost savings for the district i am requesting for the board to reconsider this equitable education options for families who have benefited from this learning option i can attest that my children thrived in this learning environment and excelled please bring back virtual learning distant learning elementary Thank you.

[04:27:18] Thank you. Ki Pan. I'm here to advocate for the return of the virtual distance elementary program.

[04:27:34] Its closure left many families, including mine, struggling to find suitable alternatives. Virtual distance learning elementary provides a fair and safe environment education.

[04:27:52] free from bullying mirroring in-person schooling please bring back virtual distance learning elementary for everyone thank you thank you tim mclintock distance learning elementary was closed we are unable to send our child to the school building and had to find another virtual option that we put her in since the beginning of the school year it has been a nightmare as she is

[04:28:26] much more isolated than she was before with only a few minutes a week to see her teacher or fellow students. Most of the time it is my wife or myself going through the lessons with her and she absolutely hates it. We are no substitute for a trained teacher. She has lost her enthusiasm to learn and has occasionally started her day just crying knowing what she has to go through for the day. We have done what we can to provide outlets for her to socialize and make the material fun.

[04:28:55] There's only so much we can do. This is nothing like the environment she would have be learning in person or through virtual distance learning elementary, where she would have a normal school schedule, get guidance from a trained teacher, and interact with her fellow students throughout the day.

[04:29:12] Virtual Distance Learning Elementary was a success in many ways, but was shut down over budget concerns. Budget that was overinflated by hiring more staff than needed and then not properly advertised to the public. Many of the LCPS staff didn't know that it was still going last year.

[04:29:32] If that wasn't enough, students who tried to join after the enrollment period were denied, despite the excess capacity available. Something needs to be done for these students. Many of these children are already suffering due to the issues which prevent them from going in person.

[04:29:48] Why are we adding to their misery? We finally managed to find a solution for them and then took it away. Thank you. Shan Chinapa? Mr. Chair, school board members, wonderful LCPS staff, and also fellow neighbors.

[04:30:16] My name is Shan Chinapa, father of two wonderful boys that are born and raised in Loudoun County, being educated in LCPS. We recently moved to a new development community in Portland. You've heard from most of my neighbors this evening.

[04:30:32] I'm here to request your attention and concrete action to address the current difficult things we are facing as a community regarding the school attendance zones. My specific request here is related to the middle school that's assigned to our community. As my neighbor Bob mentioned earlier this evening, we were promised schools within three miles radius when we signed our agreements to purchase our home.

[04:30:57] However, at a later date, we learned that we are zoned at the different schools, particularly Mercer Middle School. We were really happy a while ago to learn that the new middle school, MS-14, or Watson Mountain Middle School, is being built right next to our community at Heartland.

[04:31:17] We were hopeful that we would finally get a school that's going to be accessible, that's going to be within three mile radius of our community. However, we are very disappointed to learn that our community is not being considered to be zoned into Watson Mountain Middle School, neither in the temporary plan nor in the long-term zoning plan.

[04:31:38] I'd like to request the school board and LCPS leadership to consider zoning our community into Watson Mountain Middle School in the future. Thank you. Thank you. And our final virtual speaker tonight is Mary McClintock.

[04:31:54] virtual distance learning elementary she thrived in the program she loved her teachers she would wake up excited to learn wanting to share with her classmates and teachers the teachers in the program applied to teach virtually this was not the same pandemic teaching in which teachers were thrown into virtual the lde offered a lot of interaction at release lunch bunch after school clubs after school play dates it was a community when she wasn't feeling well we were able to tend

[04:32:29] her medically and she was still able to participate in lessons she has a medical disability children with medical learning disabilities thrived in this program so did children without disabilities it was a fun interactive inclusive learning environment with innovative teachers and technology when the program ended parents were denied another virtual option we met with our school over a series of 504 meetings we were denied simple ADA compliant accommodations other friends with the same disability diagnosis were given at their lcps schools why is it that some

[04:33:05] students are given anything they need while others with similar needs are denied schools will offer different accommodations and there's a lack of consistency through the school system we enrolled her in vava academy and she only receives 80 minutes of class time a week for english and math combined she cries because she misses her teachers and friends i am really concerned she will lose her love of learning please bring back virtual elementary and short tape for children if you do

[04:33:35] not do it in the schools our children have a right to education equal to their peers thank you and that will conclude public comment for this evening board members at this time we'll take a short

[04:33:51] break please be back on the dais at 8 45 the board is now in recess if the board is coming out of

[04:46:12] recess and we will start on our information items starting with 1401 from the department of action what did i say i meant action items my apologies we'll start with our action items starting with 1401 from the department of academics all in virginia spending plan dr ellis thank you chair suratkin good evening board members this evening we'd like to share additional information regarding the all in virginia plan that was put into place across the Commonwealth and how we are addressing it in LCPS.

[04:46:52] We have a spending plan in the VDOE template that was provided to all school divisions and that is located in BoardDocs and we hope that you will approve that spending plan this evening so we can proceed with seeking VDOE approval and moving forward with the implementation of high dosage tutoring and other measures by our January target.

[04:47:14] This slide is just a reminder that there are three areas of focus in the Governor's All in Virginia plan. Attendance and literacy were addressed when we last spoke and they are included in the spending plan attached in board docs. I wanted to provide you with a little bit more information regarding the tutoring plan this evening before you take a vote. This slide you also saw last time we spoke. The governor's signed bill came with one-time funding for each school division to use toward addressing these areas of focus. VDOE has provided a division allocation as as well as recommended target distribution of funds

[04:47:53] that you see here on this screen. You've also seen this slide before, and I include it to refresh your memory and make sure we are staying on track with our timeline that we shared.

[04:48:13] You've also seen this slide before, and this is a reminder of the local distribution of the percentage of students who qualify for tutoring using the all in Virginia criteria established by VDOE. Students in the not-proficient and low-proficient categories eligible for high dosage tutoring this is just one data point and schools what schools have been doing over the past several weeks is taking into account multiple data points looking at their student data at the individual student level and looking at the those data points to determine who needs high dosage

[04:48:49] tutoring again as I mentioned last time to give you an idea of the magnitude of these numbers, these percentages include approximately 19,673 students.

[04:49:11] So since we last spoke about this, staff has made progress in planning and completing the spending plan draft we have in BoardDocs. We continue to hold office hours with principals and facilitate breakout sessions at their monthly meeting for them to plan, process, and ask questions. Schools are reviewing their student data using those multiple data points.

[04:49:28] We've also had meetings with third-party tutoring vendors, including ones we already have working relationships with, and learned that they could provide full-time tutors who would also help manage the tutoring at each school.

[04:49:44] Providing this support to schools would be a huge benefit and lessen some of the burden of finding tutors locally, as well as some of the management at the school level. We also met with a vendor that is providing free online tutoring to Virginia school divisions through this year and next through a partnership with the Virginia Association of School Superintendents.

[04:50:05] For additional fees, this vendor will partner with school divisions to provide targeted support to small group and one-on-one tutoring beyond their free services, so we are exploring that option as well. This would allow schools flexibility to meet the needs of all students, those who are eligible for tutoring and can participate during the school day, and perhaps those who would prefer virtual options after school.

[04:50:32] As you might recall from my last presentation, I shared that each principal will take the best approach to meet the needs of their students and families. As I mentioned last time, the biggest hurdle does remain finding talent. We have decided to lean into the third-party tutoring agency for site assigned tutors.

[04:50:53] Additionally, we will continue to use an all-hands-on-deck approach. We will need to continue to rely on existing relationships with high school students in neighboring high schools, parent volunteers, as well as part-time hourly tutors. We have also set aside some funds for transportation, as about half of the schools have indicated they would like to provide tutoring after school or on Saturday.

[04:51:17] I will say that transportation is definitely going to be another hurdle and a challenge, particularly given that the buses needed for providing transportation home for elementary students would actually be doing their middle and high school runs at that same time.

[04:51:36] So that is a hurdle that we need to figure out how to get over. So many schools are looking to provide that tutoring during the school day in person. As I mentioned before, some of our schools have really strong relationships with their high schools and are going to lean on those for student volunteers.

[04:52:01] So the next three slides are screenshots of the document you have in board docs that is the template that school divisions are required to complete for VDOE. I will go through each of these very briefly. And then, as I mentioned, the plan would be upon school board approval to submit this plan to VDOE.

[04:52:22] The state superintendent reviews the plans, signs off on the plans, gives feedback if there is any, and then posts the approved plan on the All in Virginia website with the other approved school division plans. This first category is related to the high dosage tutoring or learning acceleration that we just spoke about.

[04:52:42] We've broken down the funds as listed on the screen, and you can see that we've earmarked the majority of the funds for third-party tutoring and part-time hourly tutoring. The next slide is regarding the 20% of the funding to be allocated for preparation for an implementation of the Virginia Literacy Act that Mr. Slevin spoke about last time.

[04:53:08] The bulk of these funds will be used to expedite the purchase of core instructional materials for grades 6 through 8 and the training to support those new materials. And the final, the third part of the application, the remaining 10% of the funds is to address chronic absenteeism. And as Ms. Richardson mentioned last time we spoke, many of the strategies to combat chronic absenteeism are no cost or low cost, and we are grateful for these additional funds listed here to boost our efforts around chronic absenteeism. And before I turn it back

[04:53:45] over to you, Mr. Sorotkin, I just wanted to review our action steps. So after anticipated approval this evening, we would submit our application to VDOE and hopefully receive their approval rather quickly. I have heard they're turning those around pretty quickly. After that we would notify you of their approval and or any recommendations that VDOE has for us or edits they have to our plan.

[04:54:08] We would then work quickly to secure a third-party vendor. The digital content that VDOE is providing we are participating in those webinars right now learning about those. DDI is working with us to make sure we have all data privacy agreements covered so that we can use those two tutoring platforms and proceed with hiring part-time tutors locally as well. We also plan to provide communication templates to schools as well as division communication. We also plan to provide schools a consistent way of tracking who is receiving tutoring services so we can track that

[04:54:47] division-wide. Again, all with a target launch date of January after the winter break. And with that, I will turn it back over to you and answer any questions. Thank you. Board members, do you have any general questions for Ms. Ellis regarding, Dr. Ellis regarding the plan before I make a motion here? Ms. Polifka. And then Ms. Corba. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to revisit the plan for students that are low proficient. So those students that are, specifically those

[04:55:23] students that are right on the bubble. And yes, it's great when students pass their SOLs, but this plan was designed to also provide tutoring for those students who are in that bubble. And so when I attended the webinar on October 2nd that was given by Lisa Koons, she specifically mentioned that kids that are low proficient will often turn into kids that are not proficient. So my biggest concern with this spending plan and my question to you is, will we be allocating funds to also address tutoring for those low-proficient students

[04:56:00] and not just prioritizing the not-proficient students? Thank you for that question. I appreciate that. Yes. So the low-proficient and not-proficient students are all included in the list that schools are looking at to identify for tutoring services, and they will be provided tutoring services.

[04:56:21] Ms. Korba. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, at the last meeting or the last time that we discussed this, I brought up why we're not encouraging or utilizing our employees, and I didn't hear anything about our employees or any efforts to reach out to them, and I'm wondering if you can address that.

[04:56:43] Thank you, Ms. Corbo, for that question. So in terms of planning for the All in Virginia plan, we were working very quickly to stand up a plan, and we sought principal input and their feedback in the development of this plan.

[04:57:01] In terms of employees providing tutoring services, the principals had mixed reactions about that. Many principals were wanting to protect teacher time, recognizing that teachers already have not enough time in their day to do their already assigned duties.

[04:57:21] Other principals realized that they did have teachers that wanted to provide tutoring services. So, again, that goes back to the school-by-school approach. each school will approach it a little bit differently we do have some schools where teachers are very interested in and able to for example stay after school to provide tutoring services and we will certainly allow that to happen we also wanted to be very cognizant of of teacher time but the one thing that again that i'm disappointed with is that we had we didn't

[04:57:58] have conversation with educators we talked to our principals but not our educators you know we know that a lot of our educators do have second jobs. And if they were to fill those tutoring positions, which I know we have done in the past, we've had things like SOL Blitz and so on, where we have hired our employees to actually teach our own students, which was really effective and a win for families, children, and the educators.

[04:58:30] You know, an outside vendor, of course, They can provide tutors, but it just won't be the same as our employees, where relationships are already built and so on. And again, I will have a hard time supporting this, knowing that we never considered our employees as tutors.

[04:58:47] And to have over $6 million spent on an outside vendor without even considering our own, I can't support that. So just one point of clarification, the personnel services, the part-time hourly tutors, that includes current LCPS employees that would be paid part-time hourly to provide tutoring services.

[04:59:14] You cut out for a second, Ms. Corbo. Could you repeat that? I'm sorry. Where is that on the sheet? I'm not seeing where I can see that. Dr. Ellis? So in the slide deck, I'm on slide eight, and it's under personnel services.

[04:59:36] Right. I'm looking at the cost sheet. So it's in the presentation that you gave. It's on the cost sheet, too. Hold on one second. Sorry about that. I'm not seeing that.

[05:00:03] Ms. Korba, I'm sorry. I'm going to jump in for you. If you look on the cost sheet on page one, if you look under fiscal year 24 budgeted amount and fiscal year 25 budgeted amount under line item 1000 for personnel services, you see $1.184 million in year one and $1.184 million in year two.

[05:00:23] And that is for part-time hourly tutors, and that includes LCPS employees. So 1.184 for Loudoun County and 6.8 for outside tutoring services.

[05:00:40] Is that correct? No. So those two fiscal years covered there. So it's actually $2.4 million, rounded $2.4 million for personnel services, and then 6.8 for the purchase contractual services.

[05:00:56] Thank you for that clarification. I still don't feel comfortable approving this, knowing that we have not even offered an opportunity for our own employees. And unless you can tell me that we can swap some of that money around, if employees do want to take advantage of this tutoring opportunity, then I might change my mind, but otherwise I can't support it as is.

[05:01:22] Thank you, Ms. Corbo. We do have the flexibility. My understanding is that we do have the flexibility to shift that around, if that were to be the case. And is that our intention? I mean, is our intention, I mean, I'm not hearing that either.

[05:01:40] You know, is our intention to try and include our employees, or are we just going to take the easy way out and just hire somebody, another outside service? Because coordinating our own in-house tutoring will take more effort. So this is a balance of multiple factors, including time that has not been on our side since this was given to us as a directive from the state.

[05:02:10] So in many cases, we will be able to use current existing staff. And in many cases, perhaps more cases, we will really struggle to find tutors where we will need to lean into that third-party tutoring agency to help us do that, to be able to meet the requirements within the next couple months.

[05:02:34] Thank you. Mr. Morse. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I like what Ms. Corbo is saying. I think that I'm certainly in favor of the opportunities of part-time being offered to our employees first.

[05:02:51] So if there's a way that we could have that front-loaded instead of having the private company front-loaded, I realize that that requires additional HR resources, and there's a certain trade-off associated with that.

[05:03:08] But as far as the after-school hours or preschool hours, I think that those opportunities, it would make sense if there were a capability to consolidate that and offer that to the employees first. At this time, I'm going to make a motion that the school board approve the LCPS all-in-Virginia spending plan to submit to VDOE for approval and to appropriate $13,644,240 to the grant fund in support of the All-In-V Virginia Initiative. Is there a second? Who was that? I'm sorry. Thank you. Ms. Sheridan

[05:03:48] is the second on that. I don't have anything further to speak to the motion. Is there further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we'll open the voting board. And board members, once that's open, please go ahead and record your vote. And Ms. Corbo, what is your vote? No. Clerk, could you

[05:04:17] please record a vote of no for Ms. Corbo? And please close and display the votes. That motion will pass 6-2-1 with Polifco and Corbo opposed and Ms. Reeser absent for the vote. We'll now move on to 14-02 from the Curriculum and Instruction Committee revisions to policy 50-60 textbooks

[05:04:50] furnished free i don't have much if anything to add to this from when we discussed it as an information item this was originally scheduled as the five-year review for the policy we in committee added some sentences in to clarify that students will not be charged for consumable materials which are used as or associated with the primary instructional resource for the class and section C, some new language to note that any fees regarding textbooks or consumable materials

[05:05:29] are subject to reduction or waiver for economically disadvantaged students or students whose families are undergoing economic hardships in accordance with policy 4020. So I will make a motion that the Loudoun County School Board approves staff and committee-recommended revisions and adopt policy 50-60, textbooks furnished free.

[05:05:53] Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Morse. I went a little out of order and talked about it before the motion. Is there any additional discussion on the motion? Ms. Polivko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to make a motion to amend the policy at line four after reasonable fees or charges.

[05:06:15] This is on the redlined version for student textbooks or related instructional materials may be assessed to students in specific instances as outlined in Regulation 4020, student fees and charges, add and subject to special education laws and regulations to include Section 504, IDEA, and the ADA.

[05:06:42] Is there a second? I'll second. Seconded by Ms. Ogadekbe. Ms. Polifko, would you like to speak to your motion? Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is feedback that came from SEAC regarding Section B of this policy draft, and their concern was that students with disabilities who may require modification to these materials to make them accessible, such as converting them to a digital format, should not ever incur any additional cost for that conversion or adaptation of the consumable. Thank you.

[05:07:16] Any additional discussion? Mr. Morse. I support Ms. Polifco's perspective. I think that I would rather have it, instead of putting that two sentences in, I would support just the statement that, and special education, federal and state law, or words to that effect.

[05:07:42] Because I think what happens is you're pinpointing specific policy and specific law that can change or there could be additional changes. So it would be easier just to make it a more generic statement. So if there's, unfortunately, I don't have the ability to wordsmith that, but is that something, Ms. Polifco, you'd be interested in?

[05:08:04] Dr. Ellis, did you want to weigh in? I do have a recommendation that I worked on with Mr. Allen. If I might, I think it might address everyone's concerns. So in the last section, line 26 through 28, to add where it says instructional materials, textbooks, or other materials, add where doing so would be contrary to applicable laws or where such materials are not directly used by a student.

[05:08:40] And this would be a little more broad and encompassing, not just IDEA and 504. Ms. Polifko, would you be willing to accept that as a friendly amendment or as a substitution for your amendment?

[05:08:56] Yes, I will accept that. My biggest concern was making sure that SEAC has their feedback incorporated in this policy and that their concerns are protected under 504 IDEA and ADA. And if that will encompass those three laws, then I am fine with that.

[05:09:16] Dr. Ellis, could you just read that one more time? I just want to make sure we have it in the record. Of course. So the final section starting on line 26, the whole sentence would read, nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the charging of fees to students for instructional materials, textbooks, or other materials where doing so would be contrary to applicable laws or where such materials are not directly used by a student. Okay. So without objection, the amendment will be so modified per what Dr. Ellis read out. Is there any additional

[05:09:51] discussion on the amendment. Seeing none, we'll place the amendment to a vote. We can open up the voting board, please. And board members, please record your votes. And Ms. Corbo, what is your vote? Yes. Clerk, please record a vote of yes for Ms. Corbo. And please, clerk, please close and

[05:10:23] display the vote. That motion will pass unanimously of board members present with Mr. Beatty and Ms. reasons are absent for the vote that will bring us to 1403 oh i'm sorry yes that would help so we're now thank you thank you miss okadope so we're now back to the base motion as amended that the louden county school board approve staff recommended revisions and adopt and

[05:11:00] committee revisions and adopt policy 50 60 textbooks furnished free as amended is there any further discussion seeing none please open the voting board and board members please record your vote. And Ms. Corbo, what is your vote? Yes. Please record a vote of yes for Ms. Corbo. And please close the voting board and display the vote. That motion will pass unanimously

[05:11:36] of board members present with Ms. Polifco, Mr. Beatty, and Ms. Reeser absent for the vote. That will conclude our action items and we'll start. No, it won't. I was going to do that one and then I got all discombobulated.

[05:11:54] All right, so now we're on our last action item, 1403, requested by Ms. Okadegbe on a domestic and dating violence awareness month proclamation. Ms. Okadegbe. Thank you. I would like to make the motion that the Loudoun County School Board adopt the domestic and dating violence awareness month proclamation, which I will read now.

[05:12:19] And just acknowledging this is in arrears, so this is a proclamation for the month of October. Unfortunately, due to a number of circumstances, this didn't come up for action until today, but given the importance of this topic, I still wanted to move forward with this to recognize October. Whereas October is Domestic and Dating Violence Awareness Month and calls attention to the fact that dating and domestic violence are widespread and their effects impact our entire community, and whereas sexual violence affects individuals of all ages, races, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and

[05:12:59] circumstances. And whereas domestic violence affects one in four women and one in six men in their lifetime, in addition, one in 12 high school students has experienced violence in a dating relationship. Domestic violence and dating relationship violence causes harm to thousands of Virginians regardless of their age, race, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, or socioeconomic status.

[05:13:26] And whereas during Domestic and Dating Violence Awareness Month, we honor survivors and provide public awareness on this violation of the basic human right to be free from violence and abuse, removing the stigma and shame surrounding such violence, expanding support for survivors of sexual violence, and strengthening our response.

[05:13:46] And whereas although progress has been made toward preventing and ending domestic and dating violence and providing support to survivors and their families important work remains to be done in particular a focus on teaching the community about healthy relationships and relationship equity to reduce the likelihood of dating partner violence occurring in the community and whereas the Loudoun County Public Schools community can come together to increase awareness about sexual violence decrease its frequency hold offenders accountable support victims and heal lives. And whereas we recognize that the trauma sustained from experiencing domestic or dating

[05:14:25] relationship violence is not something that someone gets over, it is something that someone survives. The Loudoun County Public Schools and Laws Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services work together to name the current challenges to address violence, identify strategies to address risk factors and implement solutions to stop violence before it happens and whereas the Loudoun County Public Schools students and staff are committed to raising awareness about healthy relationships and body safety taking ownership in prevention work and creating a culture where

[05:15:01] violence is unacceptable and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools and laws domestic violence and sexual assault services work together to name the current challenges to addressing violence identify strategies to address risk factors, and implement solutions to stop violence before it happens. Now, therefore, it be resolved that Loudoun County Public Schools does hereby proclaim October 1st to the 31st, 2023, as Domestic and Dating Violence Awareness Month. We, the understand, proclaim that now is the time to take action as leaders in our community to create

[05:15:40] safety for children, youth, faculty, staff, and families in Loudoun County Public Schools. We must work together to inform members of our community about domestic and dating violence prevention, support survivors, and speak out against harmful attitudes and actions.

[05:15:56] We join advocates and communities across the Commonwealth and the county in playing an active role to prevent domestic and dating violence, proclaimed this 14th day of November 2023. Second. Seconded by Ms. Sheridan. Ms. O'Connor, would you like to speak any further to your motion?

[05:16:15] No. Is there any discussion? Mr. Morse. Yes, I propose an amendment. I move to strike October 1 through 31, 2023, and insert December 1 through 31, 2023. I will second so we can talk about that.

[05:16:36] Okay, thank you. Mr. Morse, do you want to talk about your amendment? So I think the proclamation period has already expired, and I don't know what the value is of us doing a proclamation. for something that occurred last month. I don't know that we're bound to October.

[05:16:53] I know that that is the traditional month. But if we were going to put out a resolution, I think it would make more sense that we have a resolution for a period that's to come instead of one that's in the past. So any further discussion on the amendment?

[05:17:14] Ms. Okedegape? I guess I'm fine with that. And again, I acknowledged, I know this is in arrears, which is highly irregular. I suppose there's no harm in recognizing a forthcoming month, even though it's not technically, you know, the month nationally.

[05:17:33] But I'd be interested in other thoughts. Well, it says that Loudoun County Public Schools does hereby proclaim. So this is something that we've taken ownership of.

[05:17:50] Okay. I mean, if it's... I'll support it. I'll support your amendment. Thank you. Further discussion? All right, so we are going to vote on an amendment to strike from the now therefore be it resolved paragraph to strike and replace October 1 through 31, 2023, and replace that with December 1 through 31, 21, 23.

[05:18:19] The voting board is open, so board members go ahead and record your votes on the amendment. And Ms. Corbo, what is your vote? Yes. Please record a vote of yes for Ms. Corbo. And please close and display the vote.

[05:18:41] That motion will pass 6-0-1-2, with Mehedivi abstaining and Polifco and Reeser absent for the vote. So now we are back to the base motion to adopt the Dating and Violence Awareness Month proclamation as amended.

[05:19:01] Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, go ahead and open the voting board. And board members, please record your vote. Ms. Corbo, your vote? Yes. Please record a vote of yes for Ms. Corbo.

[05:19:20] Please close and display the vote. That motion will pass 6012 with Meheleby abstaining and Polifco and Reiser absent for the vote. We have broken new ground in adopting December as Domestic and Dating Violence Awareness Month.

[05:19:44] So that will conclude our action items and we'll move on to our information items starting with 1501 from the specialized programs and centers committee expansion of the starting towards excellence in preschool or step program miss Sheridan thank you mr. chair I believe we have staff coming forward to present the information that

[05:20:07] was presented to the committee thank you thank you thank you miss Sheridan we are here tonight to present an information item that was shared with the special programs committee at their last meeting but before I turn it over to miss

[05:20:45] Rosario and Ms. Duffin, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the feedback shared with the board from staff related to potential changes to our approach to school-led preschool learning labs in 10 of our high schools, 10 of our high school early childhood education programs in its relation to the expansion of STEP classrooms. The school-based learning labs have been a long-standing practice in Loudoun County Public Schools. One of the speakers mentioned that it's been in place for multiple decades and it is something that the Division of Teaching and Learning in the Office of CTE has been reviewing and we anticipate recommending some potential changes to the

[05:21:22] implementation that rely less on the independent oversight of our high school principals and ECE teachers for this work-based learning experiences. We will be presenting information about this topic at this Thursday's special program and centers committee where we'll have more information about some of the recommended changes. I can share that we've heard the feedback from teachers loud and clear and we recognize that we need to continue our outreach to the teachers and make sure that they're included in the process and while we have attempted to include teachers perspectives we know we can do more and one thing we'll be recommending is that we have an

[05:22:01] establishment of a ECE teacher and school leader work group with the office of CTE and teaching learning to help us review these school-led preschool programs and recommend some potential next steps but I do want to be clear before I turn over this presentation that the expansion of step into 10 possible classrooms is not contingent in any way on anything that will happen with ECE classrooms there may be some opportunities for synergy as there already does exist five high schools have step or Head Start programs in their in their high schools but that will be reviewed by the work group I just mentioned again we're still collecting feedback we have a survey

[05:22:41] that is out that is closing tomorrow and we anticipate a full update about our ECE program at the special programs committee this Thursday. So with that being said I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Rosario who will start us off on the presentation around the expansion of STEP.

[05:22:57] Good evening Chair Sorokin and members of the board. We are so grateful to talk about our starting towards excellence in preschool program better known as STEP and really discussing the possibility of transitioning from a part-time program to a full-day program. Through this program, Loudoun County is able to prepare some of our youngest learners for kindergarten readiness and their educational journey here in LCPS. I'm proud to lead the work of the STEP program under the direction of Alexis Duffin, our enthusiastic and passionate head-start and STEP supervisor.

[05:23:37] Alexis will provide an overview of the program, justification for moving full day, and share current partnerships with our district programs. Alexis? Good evening. It is so wonderful to be back talking to the school board about preschool.

[05:23:54] This is something we're very passionate about, and I would like to talk to you tonight about the Starting Towards Excellence in Preschool program, what that program currently looks like, and some plans potentially moving forward. So I'm going to begin with an overview, if you can go to the next slide. And I think it's important to talk about what our program looks like now.

[05:24:14] So STEP is state-funded through the Virginia Preschool Initiative, and there are different ways that families can qualify to become a part of the program. So those four ways are if the family's income is up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which means $60,000 total for a family of four adjusted gross income, if the family is homeless, if the parents or guardians have low school achievement, so they did not graduate from high school, and any child who is eligible for special education services can potentially qualify the child for our Virginia Preschool Initiative program, which is STEP. We currently

[05:24:51] have the capacity to serve 320 at-risk four-year-old students in a half-day model. So we have an AM class and a PM class, both running three hours with 16 students in each session. We currently have 10 classrooms located across six schools in the county. All of our AM students are offered breakfast and our PM students are offered lunch. So I think it's really important to take a moment and really digest the information from the federal poverty level.

[05:25:22] It is a federal poverty level, so it does not matter where in the United States you live. This is the level that has been determined. So I mentioned earlier that for STEP, we go up to 200% of that federal poverty level, which is $60,000 adjusted gross income for a family of four. So it's important to note that that 100% is $30,000 adjusted gross income, which can qualify a child for Head Start.

[05:25:44] So that's the difference between our Head Start federally funded program and our STEP state-funded program, but I think it's extremely important to note that a third of our STEP program serves Head Start eligible students. All right, so now I'm going to move into talking about full-day justification and why we're here tonight. So LCPS is one of only three localities in the state of Virginia to offer only a half-day program. Per VDOE, LCPS has 793 students eligible to be served, so that's based on their census data. So I'm offered when

[05:26:20] I prepare my grant each year. I'm offered slots from the state, and this year I was offered 793. So we currently serve 320 in half-day slots, so I only asked for 160 slots. We currently do not have 320 students enrolled. We would, but we've had a lot of families that have told us that they're not interested in a half-day program. We actually have students, families, that would prefer to stay on our Head Start wait list than to be served by our STEP program. They would rather wait for the chance for a potential full-day program, which is Head Start. Here is a nice graphic that really

[05:26:59] shows that information. This is from the VDOE. They were, you know, when we were having our meeting discussing those 793 slots, they talked about putting this together for us. So this really gives that visual. So where you see the green is where half-day programs are offered for VPI.

[05:27:16] So anywhere you do not see color is a full-day program. And here's a zoomed-in look for our Region 4. So that gives us a very clear look at what's happening around us. So I like to talk about Head Start. So Head Start is the gold standard when it comes to designing a preschool program. And this text that I pulled is straight from the preamble from the Head Start program performance standards. And I'm going to focus on that last little bit there that says doubling the amount of time Head Start children would be exposed to high quality instruction and services

[05:27:55] and better meeting parent needs so moving to a full day program allows us to help the students in regards to school readiness but it also helps meet the parents needs I remember a conversation I had it was a very powerful conversation I had with a parent when she was talking to me and saying that she felt as though she had to choose between her child's education and being able to provide for her family at work and she felt like she had to choose between the two because she couldn't do both with a three-hour program and that was a really hard hard you know hard to hear because I understand that and you know we're working towards a program that could meet the

[05:28:33] students and the families. Another piece of our justification for being here tonight is the VPI time requirements. So half-day programs shall operate and this is straight from those guidelines that I receive. So half-day programs shall operate for a minimum of three hours of classroom instructional time per day, excluding breaks for lunch. And we currently have a three-hour program that does include a meal. This was found as a finding in a VDOE review in 2019. So now I'm going

[05:29:11] to move into some recommendations. So I have a VPI steering committee, and this is a committee that has community stakeholders that are invested in our preschool program. And we met back in August to discuss moving forward with full day and the steering committee came up with some options so i'm going to present those options tonight and i'm also going to discuss how the specialized programs and centers committee meeting the motion that was made at that meeting as well so option number one is our big request so this is that magic wand if we could have it would be to double

[05:29:46] the step program and it would allow everybody to have the full day experience so we would continue to have the capacity to serve 320 students, and all 320 of those students would be full-day slots. Option two is doing a phased approach. So adding five-step classrooms in FY25, we would still have the capacity to serve 320 students. 160 of those would be half-day slots, and 160 of those would be full-day slots. And then with a plan to add an additional five classrooms in FY26 to complete

[05:30:19] the full day transition. So with that of course there are some budget requests. So option one we would be adding 10 classrooms which would require 10 teachers and 10 teaching assistants. We would also like to ask for a step coordinator. This person would assist with program oversight and evaluations of 40 teaching staff that would be in 16 different locations and also a preschool enrollment manager to provide oversight of the application and enrollment system that we have for our single point of entry system between Head Start and STEP to make sure that we are in compliance with all of our Head Start and our STEP standards because we do anticipate

[05:30:58] applications to increase. This would be a very powerful impact on our community, and I could see our applications increasing. All right, so option two, it changes just a little bit. So with those five classrooms, we would need five teachers and five TAs, again, a step coordinator to help with oversight and again a preschool enrollment manager to help with that enrollment process with our single point of entry application system. So I do think it's important to note that the money that is received through the Virginia Preschool Initiative changes as we change the type of

[05:31:37] slots that we are asking for. So a half day slot is half the per pupil amount as the full day slot. So you can see what we would currently have for 320 half day slots. That amount would double if we went to option one and then you can see option two when it is split between 160 half day and 160 full day. So this was brought to the special programs and centers committee and there was a motion that was made and the motion is on the board to suspend the rules and to recommend to

[05:32:12] the full school board that the superintendent incorporate the expansion of step to 10 additional classrooms in the FY25 operating budget and that motion passed three to zero. So that would be option one of the two options that I mentioned. I think it's also important to note that we have program collaboration opportunities that could potentially expand with the addition of additional subclassrooms. So the first one I want to talk about is our inclusion program. So we currently have three half-day inclusive classrooms in collaboration with early childhood special

[05:32:48] education. An inclusive classroom is a general education classroom where students with and without learning disabilities learn together. Inclusive classrooms are welcoming and support the diverse academic, social, emotional, and communication needs of all students. I work very closely with early childhood special education and we are very proud of the work that is being done with our inclusion program with STEP.

[05:33:11] And I see this as an opportunity to grow if we are to add additional classrooms. So our goal would be to operate at least eight full-day inclusion classrooms to meet the required 10% target inclusion rate. And that target inclusion rate comes from the Virginia Preschool Initiative guidelines.

[05:33:28] We also see an opportunity, you can go back real quick, we also see an opportunity to maximize classroom availability with shared program space. So this is one of those great opportunities where we have two programs within Loudoun County that can work together, and we've come up with some creative solutions in regards to program space.

[05:33:49] Another great partnership we have is with the Career and Technical Education Department. So through the early childhood education classes that are located in the high schools, we are able to partner with these programs to support those programs as well as our preschool students across five high school sites and including one elementary site.

[05:34:10] When we are able to partner with CTE, we are able to provide training for high school students in high-quality preschool classrooms. We're using state-approved, developmentally appropriate preschool curriculum. We offer a consistent schedule that's five days a week to accommodate those ECE class times and high school student participation, which allows those high school students to meet the criteria they need. These preschool programs are responsible for the program oversight of all preschool standards that are set forth by Virginia Quality Birth to Five. So same with inclusion, this is an opportunity. So we have a partnership and we would like to look at the potential opportunities for

[05:34:50] growing that partnership where it's applicable. So I want to leave you with this final thought. So I had been reading through the LCPS mission and vision, and I landed on this core value. All students and staff should have access to resources, programs, and support to enable a successful future.

[05:35:10] And this core value really stuck out to me, and it felt like this is the work that we are doing. This is who we are as Loudoun County Public Schools, and we have an opportunity to provide an outstanding preschool program to the students and the families in Loudoun County. But this time that concludes our presentation.

[05:35:37] We're happy to have a discussion or take any questions the board might have. All right. Thank you. Board members, any questions or discussion regarding the presentation? Mr. Mehedoby and then Ms. Polivka.

[05:35:53] Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation. So this is more, I mean, I'm trying to understand that this is more of an addition or this is the total program that we're going to have serving 320 kids with the option one. I guess I missed that point.

[05:36:10] Are we just talking about 320 students in option one, or are we talking about this is an addition to the existing step program that we will be adding additional? So this would be 320 slots, but instead of being half day, they would be full day. So that is option one. So it is continuing to serve 320 students in a full day model.

[05:36:28] So I guess I beg to ask, then, why just 320 kids? I mean, again, is that the total number based on what the applications we've been, that that's the only number of parents or students that we have? Or if we were to, let's say, offer countywide, what would that number be?

[05:36:48] Right. So, no, I think that's a great question. So, we currently have 320, and right now, at this day, we have 310 enrolled. So, I don't have a wait list right now to expand the program, but what I'm anticipating is an increase in applications once the program goes to full day, where we can get closer to meeting that 793 that the state says we have so there are some folks that came and spoke to this this evening about the lab program and those lab programs are at the high school so would the step programs again be at the high school or would that be the elementary school where do you see that in

[05:37:25] the full day being offered at so as was shared in the presentation we currently have five high schools where a head start or step program is housed in the high school in looking at our early childhood education programs and their work-based learning experiences for the students enrolled in those programs one potential option that would align to this expansion is we could we could support more early childhood education programs with their work-based learning experiences by putting as Ms. Duffin mentioned fully licensed preschools in the schools so the teachers could focus

[05:38:03] on those early childhood education high school students that being said it's not it's not contingent the space is a contingent on us putting it in a high school one of the things we're looking at is how have we supported our early childhood education programs how do other divisions support their early childhood education programs and there's many opportunities where when students need that hands-on experience getting into the classroom where other divisions partner with step the stuff and share an example I believe is to Minion High School sends their students over to Meadowland where we have a we have a head start or step program it's a step program um so we're looking at different options

[05:38:43] for the model for ece and i just want to acknowledge that that we we have some work to do with communication to the teachers as to the why um and we're finishing gathering some input from our teachers and we're going to have more information on that when we present to the special programs committee on thursday so i know this is being brought as an information item is there there's some expectation that that you'd like to have the board to take i guess the next meeting is that some action item this or because we're a little bit ahead of the budget cycle here right so let me let me weigh in on that because we've we've I've had that discussion with staff a little bit so I know that I think the recommendation if I'm correct the recommendation

[05:39:21] from committee was to recommend that the board direct the superintendent to include funding for this in his estimate of needs which is not something we've ever done before so we talked about some different options and I know there's a budget work session scheduled I think for next meeting the same way that we had a series of budget work sessions next meeting. So what I would suggest as a potential option is that we bring it back then for further discussion and a straw vote of the board the same way that we've done for different potential inclusions in the

[05:39:59] in the estimate of needs in years past there there could be a number of different ways of handling and I'm just throwing that out there as given that we have that work session scheduled anyway that that could be the easiest way of doing it uh did you have anything further okay Ms. Polifko and then Ms. Corbo thank you Mr. Chair uh two things quickly that I want to get some clarification on number one how does this change impact the current community-based preschool and and what's currently in place with our high school students and their ability to

[05:40:36] be a part of this they have cohesion right now and it sounds like the concern that was presented tonight is that this this would be a disruption in that cohesion so could you please provide some more information on how this is not a a drawback in your eyes but a benefit to lcps not just the school system, but the individuals who are in these classes right now who are working with the children at the high school level and also the children themselves and the educators. Thank you.

[05:41:12] So this is not to take away from the 10 programs that have community-based teacher-led programs at their schools, but one of the things that Ms. Duffin mentioned in her presentation were the benefits of partnering with STEP were that our high school students had access to an established research-based school program aligned to Virginia standards of quality when it comes to preschool and pre-k education. The teachers could focus specifically on the learning of the high school students when they partner with the STEP program as opposed to focusing on the learning of

[05:41:49] the high school students and also being in charge of a preschool program in their lab. And then there's also built-in health and safety checks and balances that come from the administrative oversight provided from the step office all that being said there are also benefits as that the teachers are sharing with us and I'm getting the emails that the board is getting as well the value of community and the connection that's felt and so in terms of that's a decision that we we still need to make because we can expand step through available spaces in our elementary schools like we're looking at those options we're working with the

[05:42:26] planning office to see where there may be some cast capacity in our elementary school regardless what happens um in in our high schools but it may be the case that there may be some high schools that say yes we would like to have step come in and we would like to partner with a step program similar to what we're doing at heritage similar to what we're doing at dominion high school or woodgrove high school but that's yet to be determined so there's there's pros and cons of both sides and that's something we need to work through with the teachers and the school based leaders. Thank you. My second concern that I have here is it sounds great. Both options.

[05:43:05] And like in a perfect world, it sounds great, right? The concern that I have is that we already have such difficulty getting teachers and hiring teachers and retaining teachers. We've seen issues with our ESSE programs where we've got classrooms that are over capacity and we're having difficulty retaining staff to meet the needs of these children when we're talking about preschool age children their social cognitive developmental behavioral levels are such that we cannot afford to be in a situation where we do not have adequate staffing in those classrooms so that's that is I think that's something that the board really needs to think about when we

[05:43:44] make this decision moving forward about how this will you know budgetary wise on paper like I said it sounds great in reality we have to think about how this is going to impact these children no I think that's very valid and this is something we're all living in the school system and I think that this would involve work with HRTD so working with them because we do have a specialized program it does require a preschool endorsement on the license so partnering to understand creative ways to recruit teachers to come teach for Loudoun County for preschool we have an awesome preschool program and we have amazing preschool space and we would love for teachers to come see that so

[05:44:23] attending recruitment fairs when I was at the specialized program centers committee HRTD just happened to be there talking about this and I'm taking notes and that's an opportunity to partner to find that and at the end of the day I really I keep coming back to what's best for kids and what's best for kids it's a full day program so we need to come up with creative solutions to find the teachers that are in there to are that are qualified to um to promote and you know to to be a part of that educational experience with our students miss corba thank you mr chairman um first

[05:45:02] off i just want to thank um thank um miss stefan and and miss rosario for the presentation um you you both know i'm a huge fan of your work um that you guys have done an incredible job with our preschool students, with our staff. Both programs, Step and Head Start, are just shining because of your efforts. And I am 100% for expanding to a full day. I think that that's important and it's critical for our earliest learners. And I know last year you came forward and we talked,

[05:45:40] you wanted to do a full day then, but we were cutting the number of students who we could service. And with this plan, you know, spending more money, providing that full day, I'm 100% in support of that. I am not in support of taking away from another program that is also very successful in order to accommodate space.

[05:46:04] I cannot support that. And so what I'm hearing now, especially from our ETE educators, is the plan from the get-go was to take their labs and replace them with STEP. And I know that's not what you're saying here today, but that's their perception.

[05:46:22] That's how they feel this went down. There was no notification. They were told one day and the second day people were coming in and looking at space. The STEP program was looking at space, their space, their labs, and that's a problem that I have.

[05:46:44] The program that is in place now with labs is there for a reason, and it's there because kids get to experience that end-to-end programming. They get to make the plans.

[05:47:01] They get to meet the teachers or the parents and the families and have that full engagement that we heard about. The step in the preschool programs cannot allow that same experience. It's like taking away the cooking labs from the students and having them go and look at the cafeteria.

[05:47:22] It's not the same experience. And the teachers will tell you that. I've spent a lot of time on the phone with teachers and discussing this with the teachers. with the CTE teachers, and I'm grateful that you're going to have continued conversation, but I am not in support of taking this space, so I would like to know if we're going to add up to 10-step programs, where are we going to put them? Where are we going to place them if we're not

[05:47:51] taken away from the labs? Thank you for your question. We are working with the planning office to identify elementary schools with capacity and as I shared we have confidence that we would be able to find capacity in our elementary schools we'd want to think about this regionally we want to make sure we have access across the community for these programs but we are we are confident that we could find 10 elementary classrooms we don't have specific schools to name right now

[05:48:24] but again the expansion of step is not contingent on the ECE program shifting but it is something that we want to have a conversation with teachers about we plan on having a work group we acknowledge the communication could have been improved we've tried to get input but we're going to be bringing them in we're going to be having more one-on-one conversations we're going to be visiting programs to have conversations with them but i do want to be clear that the expansion of step is not dependent upon anything changing at at the high school level it i i would like really a guarantee that we have space for this expansion.

[05:49:03] If we're going to approve the funding, which I have no problem doing, as long as I have a guarantee that we are not taken away from the lab schools. Mr. Morse.

[05:49:21] Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't believe that this is a solution in need of a problem. I think we have a problem. We have a challenge. It's not a problem, but we have more need than we can supply. We have half-day students who could be full-day students, and these are children that are at risk.

[05:49:45] So we've been, for the last 12 years on the board, we've been talking about how can we support our at-risk children. This has a lot of aspects folded into one. Number one, we get it at a half price because the state is, Virginia is paying for half of it.

[05:50:03] Number two, we have the integration of the special education students, potentially. That's a huge plus for them. We're improving educational outputs for all those that are involved. It's a standalone program. It doesn't have, really, we can isolate it from the ECE discussion.

[05:50:21] I don't even know why we have to have that, as long as we're focused on 10 classrooms and elementary schools and not trying to move out one program and move into another, which I wouldn't support anyway. But we've had a legislative position now that I spoke out against that says, let's go to the state and request pre-K for universal pre-K.

[05:50:44] And the words that I spoke up here were, where are we going to get the teachers? Sorry about that, Ian. The bottom line is, this is what we're going to face in the future. I think this is a very small increment of the number of teachers we're going to be faced with recruiting if universal pre-K becomes a real solution.

[05:51:06] But these are the kids that are most at risk. And if we're going to benefit with taxpayer dollars, this is the place to do it. So I understand Mr. Srotkin's point about us not telling the superintendent what to put in his budget.

[05:51:23] And I will agree with that, reluctantly. But I will agree with that because he is the chief operating officer of the division. It is his responsibility. But I would strongly, strongly, strongly recommend that this be pursued. and I'd pass that over to the next board when they start looking at the budget and what are the puts and takes for next year's budget.

[05:51:45] So, again, let's remove the ECE discussion from this. Let's focus on this program, half-price, special education children, meeting the need, bringing in the community for the students that aren't in it, and those are the students that are most at risk because they're not making half-day because their parents have to work and they can't get them in the half-day.

[05:52:05] So they're way behind, and this is going to bring them up to speed. So Ms. Sheridan and I wanted to push this through on this board, which is why we suspended the rules in the committee, because we both felt passionately that this was an important program to get a jump on, and the state is here to support us.

[05:52:24] So I will support it in whatever measure it comes out from the board. If that means recommending to the superintendent, wink, wink, then that's perhaps the route that we'll take. Thank you. Mr. Mahatvi. Thank you.

[05:52:40] I'll keep it brief. I think, as you said, this last comment, Mr. Morris, I think it's just a matter of us recommending to the superintendent, and I think the superintendent is going to add it to his priority, whether this fits into the overall strategic plan or not. But I think I did hear from a couple of board members, and that's why I wanted to speak.

[05:52:58] And I think, you know, I think there is a teacher shortage across the country. That's a fact. But that does not mean we just stop everything. I mean, that's where I come back. I mean, I do find a little, I guess I have a strong objection to that because if, what do we do?

[05:53:13] I mean, we shut down schools because we just can't find teachers. So I think we need to look it forward. I mean, I've been a very strong advocate for pre-K for all, I mean, universal. So I think it's a national crisis, and I hope that, I mean, there has to be some creative problems to help solve that.

[05:53:33] I know we talked about there were a couple of bills in terms of how we can create a better licensing program at the state level. So I just want to speak to that. I mean, just because it's a challenge, one challenge, we don't just stop looking at the pre-K as a potential option.

[05:53:57] So that's all. Any additional discussion? So I want to ask board members, is everyone comfortable with the approach? of discussing this further during the work session next board meeting and then providing straw poll direction to the superintendent.

[05:54:19] Strong poll? Strong. Okay. Sounds like we can go with that approach, so we'll discuss this further during the budget work session next meeting. And thank you for the overview and the recommendations. We'll now move to 1502, also from the Specialized Programs and Centers Committee, Middleburg Community Charter Schools, external audit results and recommendation. Ms. Sheridan. Thank you Mr. Chair. I would at this time ask Ms. Willoughby to just give an overview of the audit that happened at Middleburg and then

[05:54:54] we can talk about the recommendation from the committee. Yes so last year based on a series of concerning audit findings the school board placed Middleburg charter schools on a probationary During that probation period, we held a couple of unannounced internal audits that showed progress, and then the external audit for the fiscal year ending FY23 came back, and it showed a significant improvement.

[05:55:28] There were still some concerns noted, but for comparison, last year's external audit had nine serious concerns, and now this year's audit only had two concerns, and they were significantly lower risk.

[05:55:43] So for that reason, the recommendation was to remove Middleburg Charter from probation. However, it's my understanding that the committee wanted to place some additional conditions on the removal, and that was just basically to have the principal and the bookkeeper at Middleburg Charter continue to attend the LCPS principal meetings and the LCPS fast forums.

[05:56:12] So can I ask a clarifying question? Is that additional conditions recommended before they're removed from probation or just to stay off of probation? To stay off. We are recommending removal from probation with the conditions that the principal attend the principal meetings and they continue to go to the FAST forums.

[05:56:35] It was revealed in committee through a public comment question that the principal was not attending the principal meetings. And so we thought that was because of many of the issues in the audit were the responsibility of the principal that we found that support system to be in place for that principal to require him to go to the meetings.

[05:56:57] Thank you. So it was part of it's part of the motion to remove. Okay. Board members, any additional questions or discussion regarding this information item? Okay. So I'm going to ask for, I'm going to place this on action for next meeting just because we pretty publicly placed them on probation. So I think it's only fair that given the work that they've done to improve their financial audit situation that we give them the same courtesy when we're taking them off of probation, which I would certainly support given the progress that

[05:57:29] they've made. So that will bring us to 1503 from the HRTD committee revision to policy 7030 staff time schedules. Ms. Ogadegbe. Thank you chair. So this policy has been here before, was sent back during the last committee meeting. I made a motion to have this go back to staff for rework and that was not supported by the other two committee members. And so we are back to where we were before the red line version in board docs this will be scheduled to

[05:58:07] come back for action at the next board meeting as I'm sure many recall one of the most I would say controversial aspects of this policy as it stands right now was the addition of the word occasionally we had extensive conversation at committee we got a lot of feedback on that I will say that that word replaced the

[05:58:38] phrase at times and I believe was added to further limit and set expectations for supervisors and and for staff to know that if there were being asked to work more than occasionally that there would be that would be something that they would be within rights to raise concerns about when this comes back for action I will be asking I will be proposing an amendment to include language that was developed by HR TD

[05:59:11] originally for inclusion within a memo that would be go that would go to school-based administrators and other supervisors to provide clarity about what occasionally means and so I'll just read this now just for awareness of the board but this will come back next time and I will read it again then so it's very long-winded but this policy has been around the block a couple of times so when this comes back I'll make a motion to amend to add the following for

[05:59:49] purposes of this policy occasionally means infrequent not routinely scheduled supervisors principals may have teachers school-based staff arrive before students or remain after dismissal occasionally to participate in professional development which supports the employee in their learning and role specific to their job meet with parents usually done once in the first quarter at the elementary level and mainly during a teacher workday and or for a whole school staff meeting to receive information relative to the work site. Such meetings opportunities are usually

[06:00:25] not more than once per month and not every month with the exception of a staff meeting. Thank you. Any discussion or questions regarding the proposed red line changes? And there were just to clarify there were no changes made from the previous red line when from what was previously before the board no okay thank you uh miss corbo um thank you mr chairman and thank you miss okadugby for for that explanation i'm also concerned about um the term occasionally and because you know

[06:01:03] i just sat down and i thought about how much time um teachers do spend um outside of that eight hours. And I'm looking at, you know, staff meetings once or twice a month. You've got committee meetings once or twice a month. Of course, you've got back to school nights. You've got professional development. You have also conferences with parents. You have other PTO, PTA activities. And if you do the math, well over 45 hours or more. That's full work week. And some

[06:01:36] of the public comment we heard today was um you know working for free and so i i'm just wondering um what do other school districts do um to compensate for that i know in florida um the schools that i work with there um teachers are compensated anything outside of their work hours um they are given some sort of compensation and and i'm wondering um if other school districts do that in Virginia. So, I mean, a couple of quick thoughts about that, and Lisa, you can certainly

[06:02:14] weigh in if you'd like. So, part of that is that, as you know, they have contractual days that go beyond the number of, you know, days that are instructional. The other part of that, and I think this is important, and we continue to try to emphasize this point, is that these are employees who are not paid on an hourly basis. They're paid on a salaried basis, and so there is not an expectation of specific work hours for employees who are not paid on an hourly basis we have the workday in our schools but that does not equate to if you exceed the workday you are therefore no

[06:02:51] longer eligible to work and I mean that's just an important distinction that we continue to try to make and obviously something we're going to have to continue to emphasize with our employees Lisa did you want to weigh in with that thank you so yes I would just kind of concur with what you said and we have done a tremendous amount of work to try to educate staff on exempt versus non-exempt status and it can be quite difficult because non-exempt you're essentially eligible for

[06:03:27] overtime and when you're exempt you're not eligible for overtime so I'm not sure what school divisions do in the state of Florida but I do know that in region four most significantly in Fairfax and Prince William they both have expectations that there are times where teachers do need to work outside of hours associated with the workday and they will need to stay longer

[06:04:02] at the school to continue their workday. There is in no way a belief that teachers don't work many more hours once they go home. This is in no way trying to account for that. But just as Dr.

[06:04:20] Spence said, they are exempt level employees and that's not a determination that Loudoun County Public Schools makes. That's FLSA standards. Thank you. I appreciate both of your comments because I think it's important that the educators and also the administrators who are asking for this extra time are all aware. And I think that what I'm hearing from educators and also LEA, is not to take advantage of that.

[06:04:52] I think as educators, we all know that we're going to do these things, and some even go above and beyond, but at what point, if it were excessive, let's say, for example, if a school administrator, if they were asking for educators to really, to take even more time than what they think would be the average or an occasional time because occasional is hard to

[06:05:23] define. At what point can an educator or the LEA speak up and say, hey, you know, this is not appropriate or this is over what we would classify as occasionally? Is that something that they could speak up and um and then is there a what would what would process be so absolutely this um this question and and dialogue came up during hrtd committee and we do have a number of avenues by

[06:05:59] which an employee could reach out to communicate that they feel like they have been taken advantage of or that um it's excessive beyond what would be considered occasionally um or even if they need clarification in regards to, you know, the number of days we would, HRTD would work with the Department of School Leadership to review the allegation. You know, we have the complaint form that is available on our HRTD website. We also have the Let's Talk system available

[06:06:37] now that lets you report things anonymously. Of course, HRTD meets with LEA every other month and they often bring concerns forward that maybe staff hasn't yet brought forward to us and sometimes they share who the individuals are and where the schools are and sometimes staff is does not feel comfortable with them sharing so there are a number of avenues by which an employee could communicate concerns. I'm thinking that it probably wouldn't come from one person but maybe from an

[06:07:13] entire staff and then they would go about it the same way is that correct as you just described yes ma'am all right thank you any additional discussion mr morse up here on the dais we're listening to our constituents we're listening to the teachers come and talk to us and some of the teachers come up and they say unpaid labor or donated time as a professional that's that's

[06:07:48] quite misleading salaried and hourly employees are very different professional employees frequently have to flex. They have to flex over the weekend. They have to flex to go on a trip. They have to flex for evening hours to work on proposals, to work on anything that the office comes up with.

[06:08:08] Professionals do that. Teachers are professionals, and we treat them like professionals. And if we don't, then we have a problem, and we lose our teachers, and then we have a bigger problem. It's incumbent upon us to protect our teachers. We cannot, however, take the word occasionally out of other duties that may occur because if you remove all the flexibility for the principals how are they going to manage their schools now you've tied their hands and you've made it impossible for them to be flexible to try to fulfill the needs of the community and of the

[06:08:47] children and of the teachers and the administrators you occasionally is a word that is is vaguely defined and we can't precisely define anything this is a case-by-case basis which is the exact reason, teachers need to be able to reach up through their supervisor or if they have a problem with the supervisor, the principal or the LEA or their school board rep. They should be able to reach out and say, hey, this is not right. And then we have the responsibility of fixing that, of making

[06:09:20] sure that we're treating them like professionals. If you look at the hours and, you know, we really can't compare the hours, but if you were to try to compare the hours, normal workforce has 2,000 hours a year. Two weeks off, 2,000 work hours. The teachers, 200 days at 7.5 hours, 1,500 hours.

[06:09:49] 500 hours difference. Clearly, they're doing something more than just classroom time. They're outside. They have extracurriculars that they're supporting. They're supporting children's sports and things like that. Even with and without stipends, they're still doing that. They're doing homework, grading, they're doing performance and meeting with parents. They have all kinds of things that help fill those other 500 hours that we don't see in our day-to-day jobs. There's no

[06:10:23] doubt that they're putting in the same amount of work. That flexibility is built into their pay scale and into their profession as a professional, as a salaried employee. I think we have to assume noble intent from the teachers, that they will step up if they're being abused and overtaxed in the word occasionally. And I think we have to assume noble intent with the staff of the schools as well, that they're not going to abuse their own employees, that they're going to take

[06:10:58] care of their teachers and educators and all their staff, and that they're going to try to minimize the impact on them outside of their work hours. There is no solution. I haven't yet heard anybody either from any of the committee meetings that we went to or any.

[06:11:15] Nobody has been able to provide us a substitute for occasionally, other than never. Other than never, unless we get paid extra. And that's just not feasible. It's not a solution that we can work. So for that reason, I'm going to continue to support the word occasionally and hope that both the teachers are protected, that the administrators are noble in intent, and that administrators such as the board and the LEA will make themselves available for any kind of abuse of the situation because we need our teachers to be able to flex at times

[06:11:49] outside of the workday. Thank you. Additional discussion? Seeing none, I know there's already one announced amendment for this, so we'll place this on action for our next board meeting, and that will bring us to 1504, also from HRTD, revisions, the HRTD committee, revisions to policy 7714 personal leave. Ms. Okadekbe. Thank you, Chair. Policy 7714 personal leave was an information

[06:12:26] item at the August 31st HRTD committee meeting. The policy was made available for public feedback and was an action item at the September 28th and October 26th HRTD committee meetings.

[06:12:42] I think it's helpful to share that based on the feedback, some of the feedback that's posted in board docs, there were several comments that suggested just a change to the overall structure of leave.

[06:13:00] There are some organizations specifically in different industries where personal leave is a combined kind of paid time off where it's annual and sick and personal combined.

[06:13:19] One of the things to keep in mind just for consideration is that there is a difference in the way that payout for leave works when employees leave LCPS. and there is more, you get paid out more for your vacation time and then there's a portion of sick leave that can be paid.

[06:13:47] So that is one reason why keeping those leave categories separate is important. The other thing that we had discussed at length in committee was the language in the the policy related to the use of personal leave for the purposes of actually that was a different one that was sick time so I think that's pretty much it the there was an addition on page one of the policy

[06:14:23] section c for prorated days that speaks about the just the the awarding of the number of days based on when the staff member starts so that's pretty much it other than that it's that's really the only substantive change to the policy board members any questions or discussion regarding the proposed changes to this policy interest in placing this on consent for our next board meeting

[06:15:01] Ms. Korba? No? Okay. We will place this on action for our next board meeting. That'll bring us to 1505 from the Office of the Superintendent, Revision of Policy 2310 Committees of the Board. Dr. Smith?

[06:15:27] Thank you, Chair Sirotkin. Good evening, board members. On October 24th, the board engaged in a discussion on potential changes to Policy 2310 Committees of the Board. Based on that feedback, revisions were made and are provided this evening. As a reminder, the staff recommended changes to policy 2310 are intended to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the board and staff by reducing the number of standing committees from 10 to 8 and the select committees from 2 to 1.

[06:15:54] If you recall the presentation from last meeting, there were three recommendations. One, to merge the audit committee, which is a select committee, with the existing standing committee, the legislative and policy committee. Two, divide the responsibilities of the communications and outreach committee among the existing standing committees based on topic.

[06:16:11] And three, divide the responsibilities of the Technology Steering Committee among existing standing committees based on topic. I'd like to take a few moments to share the edits and revisions that are proposed for policy 2310. Specifically on lines 58 through 60, we've adjusted the language, removed specific schools and centers to add special programs to reflect current and future special programs.

[06:16:35] Lines 63 through 70, we've removed the Communications and Outreach Committee, and as I've shared, the responsibilities of this committee will be divided among existing standing committees based on topic. Lines 81, 92, and 95 adds the abbreviation for the Student Behavior and Accountability Committee.

[06:16:53] Lines 100 through 102 adds infrastructure and the description of the areas of oversight. Specifically adds approval of construction, supply, and service contracts, and remove sealed bids and proposed contracts. This language was amended to more accurately and specifically describe the types of procurement items that are addressed by the F&O Committee.

[06:17:12] Line 138, we added audit to the title of the Legislative and Policy Committee. The title would then be Legislative Audit and Policy Committee. Line 140 adds audit language of matters regarding the school division's audit plan. lines 163 to 166 removes the technology steering committee and the responsibilities of that committee would be divided among existing standing committees based on topic. So those are the proposed revisions that I have for tonight based on the feedback from our last meeting. Happy to

[06:17:44] answer any questions. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Board members, any questions or discussion regarding the proposed policy changes. Ms. Corbo. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't unmute before. So I just have a question. I know that I have been a big advocate of the Technology Steering Committee, and I do want to thank this board for really resurrecting that committee when we took office, just knowing

[06:18:16] that there were some problems, and I believe that we have been able to resolve them. And what I think is that where the problem stands is when we make changes, division-wide changes, we don't have a change plan.

[06:18:36] And that change plan includes like pilots and feedback and so on before we actually invest in making that change. And so I'm wondering, with an authentic change plan, where would that fit in?

[06:18:53] Who would oversee that? What committee would oversee that process? - Ms. Korbauer, thanks for the question. In terms of a change plan, it would really depend on the topic, and so the proposal here that we discussed was that based on the topic being discussed, it would go to one of our existing standing committees.

[06:19:16] So, for example, if it had to do with teaching and learning, curriculum and instruction, it would most likely go to the C&I committee. If it was more a facilities change plan, then that would be under, in terms of infrastructure there, in terms of wireless, those types of things with technology, that would most likely go to F&O.

[06:19:33] So it really depends on the topic of that change and what that might entail. Great. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I just want, you know, the superintendent is new, and I want to take this opportunity just to share with him and also the new school board members that many, many issues that have come before the board that we have really had to dip our hands into or maybe we shouldn't have to, have stemmed from there has been no authentic change plan, that we don't do the pilots, we don't do the research, we don't include our educators in those

[06:20:11] big decisions. And if we start a process where when we do make changes, that we include this change plan, require a change plan, then I think that will alleviate a lot of our problems and make our educators feel more valuable and also have our stakeholders be a part of those big decisions, especially when we're investing large amounts of money. Thank you. Is there any additional discussion or questions regarding the policy changes here? Is there interest in placing this

[06:20:47] on consent for our next board meeting? Ms. Gorbo? Yes. Okay. We have consensus, so this will go on consent for our next board meeting. Next up is 1506 from the Student Behavior and Accountability Committee Revisions to Policy 8215, Discipline Authority. Ms. Okedekbe. Thank you, Chair. The

[06:21:19] Discipline Authority Policy 8205 was held back for a period of time pending feedback from SEAC. Once they were able to meet with their Policy Review Committee, they determined they did not have feedback and then subsequently the committee voted to move the item forward to the school board on our october 23rd meeting um the so that explains the lapse in time because this was

[06:21:54] out for feedback back in july we had originally met and discussed this policy prior to the break um so the biggest change is in section a and i believe that the inclusion here was to there there are some direct quotes from the virginia standards of quality related to the scope of the school board authority with regard to discipline authority um i did want to just

[06:22:29] ask staff to when this comes back for action because the name of the student rights and responsibilities handbook has been changed it looks like on lines 47 and 48 we just need to change the acronym to i think s sfr r and r instead of sr and r thank you is there any additional

[06:22:59] discussion regarding the changes to this policy is there interest in placing this on consent for the next meeting with i would consider that a technical feel free to pipe up mr allen but i would consider that a technical and conforming change just for changing the acronym to be correct yes that's correct it's further my understanding that staff determined to have that acronym stay SRNR so as to avoid any confusion but name that that convention Mr. Allen we can't we can't hear

[06:23:38] you could you get closer to your mic yes thank you it's my understanding that staff's determination was to keep or retain the acronym SRNR for the students and family rights and responsibilities. I know we added the family rights in there, but to avoid confusion, given the kind of institutional convention of the SRNR, my understanding is to retain that acronym SRNR.

[06:24:06] Okay, thank you for that explanation. So I'm fine with that then. Thank you. Okay, so interest in placing this policy on consent for the next meeting? Okay. We'll place this on consent. And our final information item is 1507 from the Technology Steering Committee, Review of Policy 8650, Student Technology Acceptable Slash Responsible Use.

[06:24:33] Mr. Beatty. Thank you, Chair. This was presented to the Technology Steering Committee twice as part of our biannual review. The major change was the banning of TikTok on any state devices.

[06:24:50] So that's conforming with Virginia Code. We looked at the recommendations from SEAC, and based on what they had said, the one change we made was to add the content at line 14 through 17, just to include the IDEA and Americas with Disability Act.

[06:25:10] But other than that, it's fairly straightforward in terms of the change. Any discussion or questions regarding this policy? Mr. Mahedby. Thank you, Chair. So, Mr. Bay, I know there's been a lot of discussion, in fact, We had students from Loudoun Valley, I think one of the questions asked was a cell phone.

[06:25:32] And a cell phone use has been, you know, a discussion. Did that come up in your committee in terms of how do we change this policy to accommodate or address that particular issue? Thank you, Mr. Hadby. That has come up many times in our committee.

[06:25:49] And my understanding is that staff is in the midst of building a separate policy that would handle that based on the actions at Loudoun Valley and of another high school that I'm not, don't remember the top of my head. So this is something that we're working on. We're seeing the effects of Loudoun Valley's change.

[06:26:06] As we heard, it seems like it's very positive. So I think something will come out of that and it'll be rolled up into its own policy. I don't know if staff can provide any input to that. Sure, we are currently in the process of gathering feedback from stakeholders there. Those include staff and students through superintendent advisory groups and those type of things to make sure that we're collecting all that feedback.

[06:26:28] Different schools are handling it differently right now. Middle schools have an off and away. Some high schools allow use in certain areas. Some have no use allowed at all. So we're kind of taking in all that feedback before we set a policy that's going to govern how everyone uses those devices in schools. Currently, the policy does cover that devices are only allowed to be used when a teacher grants permission to that.

[06:26:51] So I think there's a potential of some regulation items that could be updated that would help support that inside the policy once we collect that feedback and are able to implement that. Any further discussion? I have one question. So the language that was added based on the SEAC recommendation on lines 15 through 17, I think that's the same or very similar language that earlier tonight we replaced with more general language in a different policy based on

[06:27:26] staff recommendation. So I'm curious if this also went through legal review and if we might want to consider making the more general, putting the more general language in its place into this policy as well. Just because I'm trying to be consistent with, and it seems like that's like rather than adding, if we're going to add language into a lot of different policies, I'd like it to be consistent one way or the other. So I don't know if the staff would make the same recommendation here or they already reviewed this language as is. Thank you, Chair Sorokin. Legal did review this,

[06:28:06] but we're happy to bring this into compliance using the previous terminology we did for the previous policy, which is something to the effect of we're doing so would not be contrary to applicable laws, period. That works.

[06:28:25] So, board, all right. Well, first, let me ask, is there any additional discussion or questions regarding this policy? So would the board be comfortable placing this on consent with replacing the language in 15 through 17 with the same language that we used previously tonight for consistency?

[06:28:43] Okay, looks like we have consent for that. So we'll place that on consent with the language on lines 15 through 17 change to be consistent with the same language used in, I don't remember the policy number, but the policy earlier tonight.

[06:29:00] That will conclude our information items, and we will move on to 1601, motion to convene closed meeting. Mr. Mahedvi. Thank you, Chair. I move to the Lowndes County School Board, recess this public meeting, and enter into a closed meeting pursuant to Section 2.23712 of the Court of Virginia for the following, consultation with legal counsel pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing in open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body as authorized by Section 2.2-3711-A7 of the Court of Virginia in consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body

[06:29:40] regarding a specific legal matter to a former public employee as authorized by Section 2.2-3711-A8 of the Court of Virginia. Is there a second? Seconded by Ms. Okedekbe. Is there any discussion? Mr. Beatty. Thank you, Chair.

[06:29:55] So I had, I believe, a number of board members that asked that we add something to discuss the superintendent, and so I'd like to make a motion, but I was informed that it would be out of order based on Robert's rules. So I'm just going to state my statement here that we should have something to discuss, just the whole opioid response, not necessarily to, you know, talk about the job per se, but to provide guidance, I think, of how it could have been handled.

[06:30:23] So that's my piece on that. Is there any further discussion? Ms. Polifco. Thank you. I agree with Mr. Beatty in his statement. And I would further like to reiterate that I requested that meeting, And I was given the support by two other board members, Mr. Beatty, one of them, Ms. Corbo, the other.

[06:30:46] And so this board should have that meeting at some point in the near future, and it should have been this evening. It was not put on the agenda. So I would expect that we would be having that meeting very soon, if not in the next two weeks.

[06:31:05] So to have a separate emergency meeting would require the support of a majority of the board. it's a higher standard than adding a agenda item for an already existing meeting. So we could certainly add this to the agenda for the next meeting if there is a request for that and the appropriate support, or if a majority of the board wanted to support adding another meeting to the calendar, that would require a majority of the board.

[06:31:34] Is there any additional discussion regarding the motion to convene closed meeting? Seeing none, we'll place the matter to a vote. Clerk, could you please open the voting board at this time? And board members, please record your vote.

[06:31:57] And, oh, sorry, Ms. Corbo, could you state your vote, please? Yes. Okay. Please record a vote of yes for Ms. Corbo. And please close and display the vote. That motion will pass unanimously of board members present with Ms. Corbo.

[06:32:14] I'm sorry, Ms. Reiser absent for the vote. The board is now in closed session.

[07:06:15] Yeah, okay, the board is coming out of closed session. Is there a motion, Mr. Mehedwee? Yes, Chair. I move that the closed meeting be adjourned, that the Loudoun County School Board reconvene its public meeting, and the minutes of the public meeting reflect that no formal action was taken in the closed meeting. I move to the following resolution certifying the closed meeting be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting: Resolution 10-23/24, whereas the Loudoun County School Board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote in accordance with the provisions of Virginia Freedom of Information Act, and whereas Section 2.237-12-D of the Court of Virginia requires a certification by the school board that such

[07:06:53] closed meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Lowndon County School Board hereby certifies to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which the certification applies, and only such public businesses matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the Lowndon County School Board.

[07:07:16] I'll second. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, please open the voting board. And board members, please record your vote. And Ms. Corbo, your thumbs up, your vote is yes. Please record a vote of yes for Ms. Corbo. And please close and display the vote. That motion will pass unanimously with Ms. Reeser absent. Given the lateness of the hour and that the room is already being cleaned

[07:07:53] up around us, we're going to skip board member comments. That'll bring us to item 18, new business. Is there any new business tonight? Seeing none, we are adjourned. Thank you.

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