Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee (MSAAC) Meeting, Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Date: Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 22m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/884658964?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-21. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:14] Good evening, everyone. It is 7 o'clock, and so we are going to get started this evening. We have a very, very full schedule and a lot of great information to share with you all. So if we could all kind of take a seat and come to order, we'll get started tonight.

[00:00:31] Hey, y'all. It is Wednesday, November 15th, and I would like to welcome you all to MSAC's final or last general body meeting of 2023.

[00:01:40] I thank you all for coming out tonight. For those of you that don't know, and just in case you forgot, my name is Erin Kunkel. I am the MSAC chair for the 2023-2024 school year. I'm very excited to have you all here and to join us.

[00:01:55] Tonight's theme is equity, access, and advocacy. And just as a refresher, this year we're going to be rotating through two major themes. And this month's is Access and Advocacy because we want to really bring some information to you all that you may know about but hear more in-depth information that you can take back to your schools.

[00:02:15] But also, more importantly, share with your communities and even as parents. There are great programs out there that you all may not know about. Some of these programs I didn't know about until just recently. And it's just going to be great to hear about them and to learn more about these opportunities for our students here in LCPS.

[00:02:32] so we're going to get started. We are packed in the schedule tonight, so we're just going to kind of go with the flow, and I promise I'm going to feed you, so just give me five good minutes. So tonight's agenda, we're having our welcome. We're going to go through a couple of quick announcements. We're going to turn it over to our guest speakers because, again, our schedule is full, and I'm excited, and I'm happy that that's happening, and then we'll have our closing remarks, and we will wrap up for this part of the year. So as always, we just want to go through our MSAC mission statement and just bring that into awareness and always have that just read at

[00:03:10] each of our general body meetings. So MSAC's mission statement is the Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee. MSAC is dedicated to partnering with Loudoun County Public Schools, parents, and the community to acknowledge and promote the needs of minority students.

[00:03:26] IMSAQ is also dedicated to building a school system that is culturally and socially competent in position to provide fair and equitable learning experiences for all students. And every meeting, as always, we want to highlight that our mission and our work and our focus is, yes, minority and minoritized students and populations within our school system, but we are also focused on all children because when one child succeeds, every child succeeds.

[00:03:55] And we want to make sure that we are keeping that in our mind and in our forethought as we go about this work, that we are doing this for all students. And we want to make sure that we're building the best school district and division for all students. And now, nope, we're not there yet. Jump the gun.

[00:04:12] So right quick, before we kind of dive into the good chunk of our meeting, if I could just get raised hands for the number of MSAC delegates in the room. Okay, thank you.

[00:04:36] unfortunately we did not make that quorum number um if you're an msac delegate um and you were watching virtually or you were unable to attend again we encourage you and we need you to come to these meetings and um attend because this work is important and we need every vote and everybody in the room um as we go about these things because in my closing remarks i'm going to let you know that there are some big things coming the way for msac and we're going to need everybody to show up up and everybody to participate and so again we encourage you to join us in person we understand if you're not able to because of business children sick children illness yourself emergencies we understand that but we're just

[00:05:15] encouraging everybody to please try to make it to the meetings and so now we're gonna pause for just a few minutes Jimmy John's is in the back there are sandwiches for everyone if you'd like to go and grab something to eat and grab a couple of snacks we're gonna have a long evening and we want to make sure that Everybody is comfortable as we go through learning everything.

[00:05:36] So we're going to pause for just a couple seconds so everybody can grab something to eat. So please, go eat.

[00:09:24] I never do either.

[00:10:24] Okay, we're going to go ahead and get started. We have a sheet, a yellow sheet, that's being passed around the room.

[00:10:41] For the delegates, if you could just sign your name and your school to let us know that you're here. we'd appreciate it. The QR code didn't want to cooperate this evening. So we will work out those kinks as we go along. So we're going to get started. Again, we have a very busy evening, but there's a lot of great information out here for us. And so please know that there are beverages and food back there. Feel free to get up at any point and grab something to eat, grab a snack, grab a hot cup of coffee. I know the nights are long, the sun set a while ago. And so we just want make sure you all are comfortable as we go about this evening and so with that

[00:11:18] I'm going to introduce Miss Clark from Department of Teaching and Learning and she's going to get things started and come and give us some great information.

[00:11:28] All right good evening I'm Katie Clark supervisor of special programs here in Lowne County and we are here tonight to share some of the amazing student

[00:12:05] opportunities that we have for our students here in LCPS. Here is our agenda for our secondary programs this evening. We'll have a quick introduction, alignment with strategic plan. We'll give an overview of the Health and Medical Sciences Academy, International Baccalaureate Program, some program logistics, and then we'll have a presentation about our Navy Junior ROTC program. With that this evening, we have with us Mrs. Sharma, our Health and Medical Sciences Coordinator, Mr. Yoribari, our Heritage IB Coordinator, and Mr. Bishop, our CTE Specialist

[00:12:44] who oversees our NJROTC program. Our special programs are directly aligned with our Strategic Plan, specifically Aligned Actions 1.1, Core Academic Excellence, and 1.2, Multiple Accessible Pathways to Success. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mrs. Sharma, who is going to give an overview of our Health and Medical Sciences Academy.

[00:13:13] - Hello everyone, good evening. Thank you so much for being here this evening. My name is Vandana Sharma and I am the coordinator for Health and Medical Sciences Academy. And I am excited to talk about the program to you and talk about the new opportunity coming to our students next fall.

[00:13:35] Here's a brief overview of Health and Medical Sciences Academy, or HAMSAI as we call it. The purpose of the Health and Medical Sciences Academy is to prepare our students for careers in the field of health and medical sciences. It is to provide our students with multiple pathways of success as they graduate.

[00:13:55] The students will get opportunities to enroll in health science literacy through a curriculum that develops critical thinking skills paired with credentials backed by industry so that as they graduate from high school, they are prepared for whatever path they choose for their success.

[00:14:18] These are the two feeder schools. These are the two high school sites that will be hosting Health and Medical Sciences Academy, Briarwoods High School, and Tuscarora High School. We have a list of high schools under each of the high school sites. Those are the schools, if the eighth grader is going into those high schools, they will be full-time students at those high schools.

[00:14:39] What does that mean? That means the students will be going to either Briarwoods High School or Tuscarora High School on both days, A days and B days. They will be taking all their core classes at these two high school sites, and they will be participating in Briarwoods sporting events, proms, or dances, same with Tuscarora.

[00:15:01] So I just wanna make sure that everybody's aware that students will be full-time Briarwoods or Tuscarora students. Here's our timeline for Health and Medical Sciences Academy. We open, we begin in the coming fall, 2023-24 school year. And by the time our first cohort is their seniors in the year 27-28, that is the full-time, fully implementation of Health and Medical Sciences Academy. Let's talk a little bit about the pathways or the options students will have if they are part of Health and Medical

[00:15:37] Sciences Academy. So they have two pathways to choose from, either Biomedical Sciences or the language of medicine. Biomedical sciences will offer strict biomedical sciences classes for all four years, and the language of medicine is a blend of biomedical sciences and the language of medicine, which is basically healthcare management, medical law, ethics, those type of things. But regardless of the pathway our students choose, I want to reiterate that our students will be learning through work-based learning experiences. They will have clinical

[00:16:16] experiences and we are preparing our students for either to take industry credentials or be prepared to take upon graduation so they are ready to enter work field if that is the path they want to choose. I also want to talk about that Health and Medical Science Academy will be integrated into students English, health and PE classes, and science classes.

[00:16:42] So we will be integrating HAMPSI into other core content of the students as they go through HAMPSI for the four years. These are the main three core focus areas of Health and Medical Sciences Academy.

[00:16:59] When we talked to our industry partners, industry experts, and the higher ed representatives, they recommended certain competencies and soft skills to be included in our curriculum. The soft skills or competencies they talked about were critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creative problem solving.

[00:17:21] And when we look at all those recommendations that they made, we noticed that it aligns really well with the LCPS profile of a graduate, which plays a vital role in our students' success and their experience of healthcare, patient care experience.

[00:17:38] So we are being very deliberate and very intentional about our programming as we plan our curriculum, making sure that we are incorporating those core competencies. With that in mind, our curriculum is robust.

[00:17:53] We will cover anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, medical interventions, backed by industry credentials so our students are fully prepared as they graduate from high school. And depending on the path they choose, they are ready to either get into the workforce or go to a two- or four-year college.

[00:18:15] Which brings me to the third focus area, which is post-secondary opportunities. The purpose of HEMSci is to prepare our students for multiple pathways of success. So whether it's a two-year or a four-year program, whether it is entering straight into workforce or whether exploring military enlistment, if that is the path they want to choose.

[00:18:35] Our goal is to provide multiple opportunities to our students and that they have the option to pick and choose whatever path they want to explore. If you are interested in getting some more information about Health and Medical Sciences Academy, we have two parent information nights coming up.

[00:18:56] The first one is on November 27th from 7 to 8 p.m. at Tuscarora High School. And the second one is on Wednesday, November 29th at Briarwoods High School from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. where we will go a little bit more in detail about what the life of your student look like if they were part of Health and Medical Sciences Academy and what the curriculum look like and what the focus of our academy is.

[00:19:22] And that is all from me. I think I'm going to pass it on to IB. Thank you. All right. Good evening, folks. to talk to you tonight about the international baccalaureate program the international baccalaureate organization prides itself on delivering education for a better world to this end the in the diploma program is the international baccalaureate signature program it's a rigorous internationally minded flexible

[00:19:58] holistic college prep program that really puts the learner their interests their passions at the center stage. In all of the classes, the students can pursue projects that are, you know, built around their interest and those passions. So to this end, I want to stress that we are recently authorized, and I know that perhaps that doesn't mean much, but in the last year and a half, the teachers at Heritage High School at Loudoun Valley have spent

[00:20:31] a lot of time sort of preparing the table, if you will, for the IB program, making sure that we align philosophies, making sure that there are multiple pathways for students that we've created accessibility and that we're able to play to students' strengths in terms of the pathway that they choose to complete the diploma.

[00:20:53] So we're very happy that we have recently been authorized as an IB World School. Moving on from that, we will offer our first classes, first IB classes next year, and hopefully graduate our first diploma candidates in the 25-26 school year.

[00:21:13] So I mentioned earlier that the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program is really education for a better world. To that end, the IB developed the IB learner profile, in which you can see a heavy emphasis on content on academic rigor with words like inquirers they seek to develop global citizens that are inquirers knowledgeable thinkers but there's also this character building side which is the holistic side of the IB program that you that really aims to develop the whole learner the

[00:21:50] whole child to be a global leader and to be able to have an impact in designing and making a better world so to the end of giving students feedback on IB learner profile attributes the IB has developed the approaches to learning a lot of this is best practices you see in their very content specific approaches to learning such as research skills and thinking skills but there's also this big emphasis this big linguistic emphasis that you can't get in AP classes where a

[00:22:28] student is being assessed and given feedback on their speaking and you also see that commitment to the holistic child in developing social skills and developing self-management skills particularly you know as they would pertain to higher education to being able to juggle multiple tasks as well as to being able to research carry out projects in the community in which they are thinking globally but acting locally. In terms of the approaches to teaching you see that

[00:23:04] teachers are really expected to deliver conceptual understanding in their units in their lesson plans that there are connections to the larger world as a whole to issues that you know plague humanity if you will as well as an emphasis on inquiry and the ability to research and to develop really for higher level academia. There's also an emphasis there on, you know, that instruction be differentiated and that they meet the needs of all the learners. So while

[00:23:41] there is the diploma program that requires the completion of six two-year IB classes, which are college level classes, you get a GPA bump for those classes. They take two years to complete, you also have to complete what's known as the theory of knowledge course, which really holds the content areas together. It's sort of the glue in which students will connect conceptual ideas and learn about themselves as they approach different disciplines and any

[00:24:18] obstacles that they might have to their understanding in those different areas. Students also have to write an extended essay which they get a faculty advisor for and they also have to extend that learning into the community through the creativity activity and service hours so that's one track that's the the sort of the full buffet of IB if you're doing the the IB diploma on the other hand is you can also just take classes a la carte you have an interest in IB math analysis or you have an interest in IB global politics, you can certainly choose courses and take them. Much like

[00:24:57] the College Board, much like AP, you can get college credit depending on how you score. But every college is different in terms of how they will award credit, just like they are with AP. So that's something that you need to keep in mind with AP, even sometimes with DE courses or dual enrollment courses talked about receiving college credit and how students can leave i mean there's some colleges i think virginia tech and william and mary for example can give upwards of 20 some 30 credits right so greatly reducing the amount of time that they have

[00:25:36] to spend in receiving a four-year degree and how much money you have to spend in college as well So the IB program is being offered in two different schools in Loudoun County. It's being offered at Heritage High School and at Loudoun Valley right now.

[00:25:54] All the schools that are listed here feed into Heritage and Valley, respectively. You will go over program logistics, but you can't transfer. Like if you're in one of those high schools that feed to Heritage and you are accepted into the program, you have to or you're offered a spot you have to attend that specific high school so we will also have information nights that will go more in detail about the classes about expectations what students and parents can expect in the ib diploma program more in detail the information night at

[00:26:32] heritage will be on november 28th from six to seven in the auditorium the information night at valley is december 5th from 6 30 to 7 30 and with that said i'm going to hand it back to mrs clark for some program logistics all right so some program logistics for our health and medical and our ib program students we did visit all 17 middle schools and held assemblies about

[00:27:07] these programs and opportunities and we did send out a follow-up email with all students and parents regarding our visit so that every eighth grade parent in Loudoun has this information. But the first step will be on December 1st through January 31st. Students will go to LCPS Go and they will be able to show interest up until January 31st. And step two will be in February where our research office, our wonderful research office, will run a lottery for us for these two programs to select our students for this, these opportunities. Students will be

[00:27:44] notified in March and then we will keep a wait list ongoing. So after the 31st, after 11:59 p.m., if anyone submits interest in either of these two opportunities, they will be added automatically to the end of the wait list in date and time order. A little information about transportation. It is available for students but it is from a hub stop location hub stop locations are at a Loudoun County location so it's at an elementary middle or high school and parents and guardians are responsible for getting their child or children to

[00:28:22] and from the hub stop locations in both the mornings and afternoons when students are offered a seat in the program there will be a follow-up permission form for the parents to accept and that is when you would note that you are interested in receiving that hub stop transportation. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Bishop to talk about our Navy JROTC program. Thank you, Ms. Clark. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy to be here and look at all those smiling faces because I've got one myself.

[00:28:57] I enjoy being here working with Loudoun County Public Schools, and I hope that you enjoy having your children here, that you enjoy working with us. I want to talk to you a little bit about the Navy JROTC program, what it is, but the first thing I want to tell you is what it isn't. It's not a military recruitment tool. This is a leadership development program. It works great.

[00:29:18] We have roughly 200 students in the program right now, and about 90 of those have come from outside of the Loudoun County High School boundary, which is fantastic. So we talk about the mission, and when we talk about mission, what I look at is how do you live your life, right? When you're talking about leadership development, it's where you're going to go in your life, and how are you going to get there. In order to do that, we're going to work on your leadership development skills.

[00:29:47] We're going to teach you leadership traits and how to go about having that successful life. We're going to work on your character because we don't want you to be one. We want you to have something. When someone talks to you and you tell them something, they know what they're going to get.

[00:30:05] No talking out of both sides of the mouth. Honor, we look at how do you conduct yourself as a student? Do you bring credit to yourself and to your family, to your school, your county, your state, and the United States of America?

[00:30:22] That's our goal, is to help you achieve those things. And we're going to do that by helping you with service, through community service. And you'll be part of teams within the Loudoun County High School Naval Junior ROTC program. And it's going to enlighten you to things and help these children that they have never thought they could do.

[00:30:40] And we're going to raise them up through this leadership development program. It's simple as that. So we're going to focus on order and precision, self-discipline, which is what I really like to have in students being able to know they're doing the right thing at the right time, even when nobody's looking, so that we develop their integrity and their leadership capacity at the same time.

[00:31:04] We look at their ethical behavior, and we teach them those ethics. We look at patriotism, because that's what our program is. It's about citizenship. We have Captain Johns, Gunny Gatins, and Senior Chief Fitch who are running the program and doing a fantastic job with it.

[00:31:23] I don't know if any of you were able to go out to the Veterans Day ceremony they had last week, but let me tell you something, that was inspiring. They did a fantastic job. They've got a great women's step team silent drill. They've got a great silent drill rifle team, fantastic people.

[00:31:43] So we're over at Loudoun County, like we said. It's open to all of our 8th grade students, whether they're public, private, or homeschooled. Now, if you get selected for the program, you do have to go become a Loudoun County High School student. Only 25 out of the Loudoun County High School boundary are going to be selected for the fall of 2024 admission.

[00:32:06] It's not a bad thing. We're going to provide that transportation, like Ms. Clark said, from a hub and get you there and get you back. While you're in the program, if selected, Navy pays for everything, right? so you don't have to pay for your uniforms and you don't have to pay for shoes and that type of stuff.

[00:32:25] They're going to provide all that for you. You're still going to be able to participate in all of the extracurricular activities. If you want to play football or baseball or basketball, whatever it is, you can play it. You want to be in the band, that's fantastic. All of your CTSOs, your career and technical student organizations, you can do those.

[00:32:43] The Technology Student Association, you've got FBLA, DECO, whatever's available at the school, the student gets to do it. Those dates are the same for us, December 1st through January 31st, and that's in the student admissions portal or opportunity portal.

[00:33:02] Now, a little bit different tact is that once all the applications are in, a committee reviews them all, and then they get processed, and then the interviewees will go, and after that interview, they'll be either offered a spot or they'll be put on a wait list.

[00:33:26] but it's not a lottery. There's no luck involved. It's what does the young person bring to the table. So we talked about CTSOs. They also have competency-based instruction. So if you want to look up what these young people are going to be studying, if you go to the CTERC, that's the Career and Technical Education Resource Center, you can look up that course, Naval Science 1, 2, 3, and 4. It actually tells you everything you need to know about what Captain Johns and his crew will be teaching the children. Industry credentials, you know, they can take the

[00:34:04] workplace readiness test, and a lot of those students end up doing things like Sea Perch. I don't know if you know about Sea Perch. That's an underwater robotics. They get to be on orienteering teams where if some of you are like me, you've been lost and you needed a map, and you got to know how to read the map in order to find out where you are and where you're going and how to get there. So we're going to teach them that on orienteering teams. They have opportunities to be on drill teams, silent drill. They'll be on color guards and have opportunities to compete all over the United States. And we've got a really good crowd there. I see we have some Loudoun County folks represented here. And thank you very much for

[00:34:44] coming. I appreciate that. Transportation, as we said, I don't think that there's too much left for me to tell you. It's a fantastic program. I hope you will go and look at the Loudoun County High School website. Take a look at the website, the web pages, and see what all is going on at Loudoun County High School for the Naval Junior ROTC program. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. All right, here's some contact information for those three programs. These

[00:35:22] are also on our websites as well. We have a table in the back, and we have information about the information nights and some other handouts if you're interested in picking any of those up, But at this time, I'm going to transition to our elementary program, our dual language immersion program that started this school year.

[00:35:42] And this is our quick agenda. This portion will go very quickly. Unfortunately, Louisa Quintero, our DLI elementary specialist, is not able to be here this evening. She's at a conference doing some of her own professional learning.

[00:35:59] So I'm going to fill in and go through her information this evening. So our two dual language immersion schools are at Potomac Elementary and Sanders Corner. And again, this is our first year offering that, and it started with our kindergarten class this year.

[00:36:15] We have 50 students at Potomac Elementary and 50 students at Sanders Corner. I believe they're going to be our spotlight in December at our school board meeting, so check it out. They are adorable, and they are doing amazing in their learning.

[00:36:31] Our program is Spanish Immersion, so here's just a little bit of information about our program. So the LCPS Dual Language Immersion goals are academic achievement, bilingual and biliterate, and cultural competence. LCPS offers a 50-50 model, which is two-way immersion.

[00:36:50] Again, that's students learn half day in Spanish, and then they switch, and they learn half day in English. So the two classes, those group of students have the two different teachers throughout the day. Interest in the DLI program is open to all kindergartners and is provided at the two schools that I mentioned.

[00:37:09] The seats are limited, therefore a lottery is held for those who complete the DLI lottery registration form before the deadline and a wait list is established just like our other programs. Just some program logistics.

[00:37:27] LCPS transportation is not provided for this program. Those students who are selected, it is the parent's responsibility to get the student to these two locations if they are out of zone. If they are a Potomac or a Sanders Corner student, they can ride the bus as usual.

[00:37:46] We do have a website with more information. It's just the typical LCPS website with DLI at the end if you want any more additional information. We have started our community events. We've held two, one at Arcola Elementary and one at Emmerich, and we have a lot of additional events coming up.

[00:38:05] We do have flyers in the back in both English and Spanish if you're interested in attending any of those. And with that, Luisa Quintero, as I mentioned, is our specialist, and then Kelly James is our new member in teaching and learning.

[00:38:21] She's our world language and culture supervisor, and they are the owners of this program. So with that, that concludes our portion of our presentation this evening. Again, we will be in the back in the table. We have flyers and information about every program that we've discussed tonight.

[00:38:37] As we told our middle school eighth grade students, it's an exciting time to be in Loudoun County. We have more opportunities than we've ever had. So there are a lot of opportunities for our students to explore and hopefully find something that they are passionate about. So thank you guys for letting us be here this evening, we'll be in the back if you have any questions. Thank you all for coming and sharing with us this evening. As Ms. Clark mentioned, we're going to kind of keep

[00:39:15] going through our presentations and there are tables set up in the back so if you have more questions or you want to get into some of those flyers just bear with us and there'll be a time for you to go back and ask questions and get those flyers and get that information to take back with you. Now I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Bland from the EDGE program and she's going to come and share with us.

[00:39:53] Good evening. Thank you for having me tonight. I'm excited to give you an overview of the EDGE program. As you can see, EDGE is an acronym, Empowering Diversity and Gifted Education, and it is a talent development program. So this is our purpose for EDGE, and it's a lot of verbiage because it's on the website, the gifted website, and I want to make sure that when you go there

[00:40:32] and you look at this purpose that you understand exactly why we exist and what it is that we are trying to accomplish. But I did bold some of the verbiage so that you can just get a large overview of what we're doing.

[00:40:55] So in EDGE, we are trying to develop the talents of students who exhibit high academic potential. So these students are generally not highly represented in our gifted program as well as other advanced academic opportunities, and I've listed those at the end.

[00:41:22] And so we want these students not only to be able to register for these opportunities, but to be successful, and so that does include those higher-level math courses in middle school and in high school, dual enrollment, IB, advanced placement courses, and the Academies of Loudoun, as well as other pathways and opportunities that are available.

[00:41:47] So our vision, mission, and goals are listed here, and in great Lottie Spurlock fashion, we are talking about each and every student and not thinking of them as a group.

[00:42:08] Sometimes when I leave out the words each and every, I don't really think about that each and every student has a right to be as successful as they can be.

[00:42:25] So when I add those words, it reminds me that we're not talking about a group of students, but that every student deserves what they need to be able to be who they need to be. So, here are some expected outcomes of EDGE students.

[00:42:45] So, we try to catch them around first grade and move them through EDGE until they go to middle school. And the way this list was originally filled in was that I asked some teachers who were EDGE teachers when I got this position to come meet with me.

[00:43:09] And I asked them, what would you like your EDGE students to walk away with when they go to middle school? And this was the list that they gave me. So these are the underlying foundational things that we are working on with our students.

[00:43:26] Whenever we have EDGE students in a group, we are working toward one or more of these things, one or more of these skills. So, underserved populations and advanced learning opportunities in LCPS is what we are focused on.

[00:43:47] These are students who are culturally and linguistically diverse. They are also students who may have an IEP or a 504 plan and are potentially twice exceptional. When we look at the numbers from LCPS when I first came on board and before that, we found that these students were often not well represented in gifted programs as well as other advanced academic opportunities that I mentioned before.

[00:44:24] So EDGE was created to enhance the skills in students who show promise so that they can take advantage of these advanced academic opportunities.

[00:44:41] So the selection process starts exactly how the selection process for gifted education starts. It starts with search. When gifted resource teachers go into classrooms in kindergarten through third grade to do search lessons, These lessons are a little above what students will get in the classroom, and they're a little more rigorous and a little more challenging.

[00:45:09] So they're looking for students who are curious, who can find more than one way to solve a problem, who are looking for something that really interests them and digging deep into that.

[00:45:24] And so when they find students have those characteristics then they will put them on a list they will see if they're eligible for edge if they are they can put them into edge right away they can also make sure that they are tagged to go through the eligibility process for gifted services so that we make sure we're catching all the students that that we can and giving them what they need to be successful they

[00:46:00] also will look at MAP and Kogat scores and they will talk to stakeholders and I'm always reminding teachers you talk to their teacher you can talk to the L teacher if it's an L student you can talk to case managers if it's a student with an IEP or a 504 plan, but do not sleep on the specials teachers because they know everybody.

[00:46:28] And you want to talk to everyone who knows a child as a learner so that you can get a well-rounded picture of who they are. They also do look at work samples from search and some classroom work samples, but they have to be careful that those work samples are completed in class and not at home and I bet you know why. So how does EDGE look? It's a pullout program in elementary schools and

[00:47:03] every elementary school in Loudoun County has an EDGE program. Depending on the school it might be small or it might have 40 students. It just depends on the school and when students are in these EDGE meetings they're in a small group setting where they're getting some um some some extra attention from the teachers um they are able to grapple with problems i've been in in meetings where

[00:47:42] students are given three difficult assignments activities to complete and they have as long as they need to do it so they work on the first one until they finish it until they solve it and then they work on the next one and then they work on the next one so there were students in the room that were working on they were in different places but the teacher was able to give them as much scaffolding and support as they needed some needed more than others some didn't need

[00:48:17] any at all, and they were able to work through those problems and solve them, which helps to teach them things like tenacity and perseverance and thinking deeply, trying more than one way.

[00:48:34] How many different ways can you figure out what different strategies can you use to get to the solution of this problem. So I like to say that EDGE enhances cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal skills because it covers everything from growth mindset to the five C's. We're trying to make sure that students have everything they need in their tool belt when they go to middle

[00:49:03] school. So I have a couple of EDGE lessons that I wanted to share with you. This first one I call off to the movies. And what I wanted when I was writing this lesson was to make sure that students understand how to take information from several sources and synthesize it to come up with the solution to a problem. So in this case, this family, we say, you know, they've had a long

[00:49:38] week and they want to go and enjoy themselves. They want to go to a movie. And it tells you who the people are and what they're eating. So when the students get to this sheet, now they have to take those people and figure out for an early movie what their ticket is going to cost and then what their food is going to cost. Once they finish with that, then they can calculate for a regular

[00:50:13] price movie ticket and then compare the two. So is it better for them to go to an early movie or a regular price movie? And that's about a fourth or fifth grade lesson. This is a kindergarten lesson and it can be done early in the year because they don't have to read to do it. They just have to kind of figure out what the pictures mean so that first picture is a duck and if I look

[00:50:49] at this card in that same place that's also a duck he's ducking and the tree bark and the dog barking so when the teacher cuts these cards out shuffles them and hands them to the kids they have to figure out which two cards go together and this helps them understand that one word can have more than one meaning and it introduces them to more broad vocabulary because

[00:51:26] now you know that little duck that word also means that you don't get hit by the ball. So I also want to talk to you about family academy and as much as i love edge i really love family academy family academy is a group of meetings throughout the year for parents whose students are participating in edge they occur at different schools different elementary schools and we do include dinner for

[00:52:02] those meetings. And there are three meetings that go on in these sessions. So one is for the adults. The parents and guardians have some kind of presentation and they get information strategies and materials that will help them enhance their child's learning at home. There is also a workshop for the EDGE students that is run by the gifted resource teacher at that school.

[00:52:38] And then there is a, I call it the activity room for siblings of EDGE students to also be able to enjoy some creative activities and some critical thinking puzzles as well.

[00:52:58] Because it is a family meeting, we do have that time for dinner. And then we all divide and go to our different meetings. And we come together at the end before we leave. We do have in-person meetings and virtual meetings.

[00:53:16] And so if you are a parent of a student who participates in EDGE, you will at least get invitations to the virtual meetings. And then we have the in-person meetings as well.

[00:53:36] And we usually kind of keep the in-person meetings to that cluster so we don't have 9,000 people to feed. But definitely look out for those invitations if you are a parent of an EDGE student.

[00:53:53] And here are some quotes from Family Academy parents who have been to our meetings. Interestingly enough, last year was the first time we had in-person meetings. We started during COVID, and so they were virtual until last year.

[00:54:16] And a lot of families came to all five in-person sessions. So we got to know each other, and it was wonderful. And so these are some of the quotes and some of the pictures from students working, especially the EDGE students, but also their siblings.

[00:54:39] That top one where the alphabet rug is, I don't know if you can tell, but they're holding a chain, a paper chain. they were tasked with creating the longest paper chain they could with a certain amount of strips and tape and these girls cut those pieces into tiny strips and that's how long their chain ended up being. So it was awesome to see how they worked things out in their mind and they were able to win the challenge.

[00:55:22] So why EDGE? As I said before, when we look at the numbers of subgroups in Loudoun County public schools, we find that some of them do not have enough students in gifted education or other advanced academic opportunities.

[00:55:44] when we look at the percentage of those students in LCPS. So our goal is to close the gap, increase the number of students who are in our programs, and to make sure that every student has an opportunity to be their best.

[00:56:07] So one thing I noticed when I started teaching in 1994, we were talking about the achievement gap. I moved here in 2009, still talking about the achievement gap, and I'm thinking, we have a lot of really intelligent people in education, not really sure why we can't figure this out.

[00:56:30] Well, the reason why is because when you are focused on the symptom, you're not looking at the underlying issue, and that is where we have problems with achievement gaps. That's not the issue. That's the symptom.

[00:56:47] The issue is opportunity gaps and the fact that some students don't have a seat at the table. So EDGE was created to make sure that every student that needs a seat at any table can have that and have that opportunity to increase their potential over the years that they're in LCPS.

[00:57:13] This is my closing, my favorite quote of all times. I absolutely love it. And Dr. James Gallagher said, Failure to help the gifted child reach his potential is a societal tragedy, the extent of which is difficult to measure, but what is surely great.

[00:57:38] How can we measure the sonata unwritten, the curative drug undiscovered, the absence of political insight? They are the difference between what we are and what we could be as a society. And what that says to me is everything that we do, we need to make sure that we understand that we all have something to offer.

[00:58:06] And if we don't have the opportunity to offer, we miss being the best that we can be. So thank you very much. I appreciate you having me tonight.

[00:58:27] Thank you, Ms. Bland, for your presentation. And now I am going to turn it over to the Academies of Loudoun and Mr. Livesey to come and share with us as well.

[00:58:48] Thank you, Ms. Conkle. Thank you, MSAC, for providing the Academies of Loudoun Admissions and Outreach Office this opportunity. We're going to set up here this opportunity to speak to you tonight about Loudoun County Public Schools Magnet STEM High School.

[00:59:05] The Academies of Loudoun is a high school, a public high school, just like all the other 17, 18 high schools in Loudoun County, with few exceptions. The biggest exception is students have to apply to attend, and that our entire student body is comprised of students from those other 17 high schools.

[00:59:29] So that's what makes it kind of a fascinating school to attend. Standing with me is Carrie Flaherty and Ms. Jackie Hernandez. We are the admissions and outreach team at the Academies of Loudoun. We have what we think is one of the most outstanding jobs in public education, and that is to go to every school in Loudoun County.

[00:59:53] We haven't been to all the elementary yet, but we have been to all the middle and high schools over the course of our six-year history. And it is an exciting opportunity to share these programs with all students in loudon county public schools we visit every middle school in the fall and we visit we're just getting ready to visit every high school in the next couple of weeks as we start our winter admissions cycle with that i'm going to turn it over to mrs flaherty and she's going to give you an overview about the admissions process and the criteria associated with applying to the academies

[01:00:26] kerry hi thank you for being here this evening i am super excited to share uh all of the opportunities that await you and your children at the academies of loudon so i do want to start by saying that i'm going to go through a lot of information tonight so i know you've already heard a lot of information so please know that everything that you're going to hear from me is on our website we do have evening information sessions for parents in the fall and the winter

[01:01:00] we're going to share our contact information so if you ever have any questions feel free to send us an email or give us a call we always like to start our presentations with our mission because it's very near and dear to our hearts which is to empower students to explore research collaborate innovate and to make meaningful contributions to the world in the fields of science technology engineering and mathematics we are one school and we have stem focused curricular programs

[01:01:34] we have the academy of engineering and technology often referred to as aet we have the academy of science often referred to as just aos and we have the monroe advanced technical academy often referred to as MATA and your students can start applying to our programs as early as eighth grade so you'll notice that we have two programs highlighted at the top of this chart and those are our four-year programs AET and AOS students typically not typically will always apply for

[01:02:14] these programs in the fall of their eighth grade year. And if they are offered admission, they would attend for all four years in high school. There are additional opportunities to apply to the academies of Loudoun as students progress throughout their years in LCPS.

[01:02:33] We have another program under the AET umbrella, which is a two-year program. Students can apply for this advanced AET program when they are in 10th grade and if they're offered admission they would attend in 11th and 12th grade and then lastly MATA. MATA is going to offer students the opportunity to come to the Academies of Loudoun for either a one or two-year commitment and students will apply for these programs during the winter admission cycle when they are in ninth

[01:03:09] the 10th or 11th grade MATA does offer 26 different learning pathways a little general information about the academies of Loudoun again we are an LCPS high school so transportation is provided to the academies of Loudoun students will opt in to transportation usually I think that happens in about July timeframe and And you should all know that if a student is offered admission and accepts their offer to the Academies of Loudoun, they're going to be concurrently enrolled into schools.

[01:03:48] So they will have a home high school and they will attend the Academies of Loudoun and they do so on alternating days. So they'll have an A-day school and a B-day school. So we are a STEM-focused magnet. So students will take their STEM classes at the Academies of Loudoun in the AET and AOS programs.

[01:04:08] So they'll be taking their math and their science classes at the academies in a STEM-focused elective. And when they are at their home high school, they will be taking their humanities-based classes. All MATA classes are going to be considered STEM-related elective classes.

[01:04:26] So the admissions office, we run two admission cycles. As I mentioned before, the fall is for students who are in 8th grade. This admission cycle typically opens in mid-August and closes in mid-October. And again, students will be applying for the two four-year programs.

[01:04:45] The AET program has a curriculum that strives to provide students the opportunity to engage in advanced STEM pathways. So when students apply, we are going to ask them to think about which of these pathways resonates with them the most.

[01:05:06] It's kind of like when we go and talk to students, it's kind of like when you are in college and you select a major. When you're in AET, you're going to have a concentration or a focus area, and it's going to be one of these three, either engineering, entrepreneurship, or information technology.

[01:05:24] All AET courses are going to be considered honors level or above, so they do get that GPA bump. And again, it is a four-year program. So I kind of refer to AET as our techie program, and we have the Academy of Science, which has its own unique flair.

[01:05:45] The Academy of Science has a curriculum that is going to provide students the opportunity to engage in mathematics, science, and research. And it promotes creativity and innovation through problem solving and collaboration.

[01:06:00] So AOS is our, when I talk to students, is our bench science program. So all of our budding scientists out there, this may be a program for you. I do encourage students, when we go out and talk to our younger students who are thinking about the Academies of Loudoun, I encourage students to apply to both.

[01:06:21] Sometimes students will apply to just one program, sometimes they will apply to both, so that is up to you as a family and for your students to make that decision. But if they have a general interest in STEM, both programs offer excellent opportunities for students.

[01:06:41] So one difference that the Academies of Loudoun has is that students it's not a lottery system to come to our school so all applicants do have to meet the following admission criteria for the aos and aet programs so by eighth grade they need to be enrolled in algebra one or higher they are also going to have to take an assessment this assessment has two parts there is a stem thinking critical thinking assessment as well as a writing component if you are interested in

[01:07:19] applying on our resources page on our resources tab on our web page we do have some links that will help you to prepare and get familiar with these assessments lastly we're going to look at the students grades to make sure that they have a C or higher in their science and math classes from sixth grade seventh grade and the first semester of eighth grade so that's fall now moving into winter again this is for students who are currently enrolled in high school students can apply for the two-year advanced AET program and the MATA

[01:07:55] programs in advanced AET the curriculum is a little bit different the curriculums are also on the web page but there are only two pathways that students would be selecting from in the two-year pathways so either engineering or information technology and again students would apply in 10th grade and if they are offered admission would attend in 11th and 12th grade the admission criteria for advanced AET is that students need to be currently enrolled in one of these classes math analysis AP pre-calculus or AP calculus

[01:08:32] AB students must also have finished two science credits by the end of 10th grade we do recommend that they have taken a research-based class that is not it doesn't have to be research but we do recommend that it is the research level we are going to review their grades students must have a C or above in each class in ninth grade as well as the first semester of 10th grade we also are going to look at their PSAT scores and the students will have to take a writing

[01:09:08] assessment. Okay, so now for our MATA program. This is going to be a video, and I'm hoping that this is going to translate well to those of us who are joining us virtually. Uh-oh, sound.

[01:09:28] Just escape. Right there.

[01:09:53] MATA allows students to explore their passions and interests while preparing for 21st century college and careers. The MATA program provides significant and relevant learning in career and Technical Education, and is a Virginia Governor STEM Academy. MATA offers 26 career preparation options that are offered as one or two-year pathways. One-year pathways include administration

[01:10:24] of justice, auto collision repair, biotechnology, building construction, Cisco, culinary arts, cybersecurity, emergency medical technician, environmental plant science, health informatics,

[01:10:59] Introduction to Health and Medical Sciences, Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning, Masonry, Television Production and Digital Movie Making, and Veterinary Science.

[01:11:18] Two-year pathways include Auto Service Technology, Biomedical Technology, Computer and Digital Animation, Computer Integrated Engineering and Design, Cosmetology, Graphic Communication, Medical Laboratory Technology,

[01:11:57] pharmacy technology, radiology technology, and welding. So those are our amazing MATA programs.

[01:12:20] We are so fortunate to live in a county that invests in education and provides all of us with such great skills and programs for our students. The MATA admission criteria is as follows.

[01:12:37] So when students apply, we're going to ask them to upload a resume in a career goal statement we do when we go out to the students in high schools talk to them about you know what the what should be contained in the resume and what the career goal statement might look like we also are going to ask that the students are involved enrolled in algebra 1 or higher at the time of application they do need a PSAT NMSQT score so students or parents if you are

[01:13:13] thinking about enrolling in the MATA program make sure that your student is attending school on the day that the PSAT is administered we're going to review their academic record make sure they're on time for graduation and we do ask the counselors to submit a recommendation for the students.

[01:13:35] This is not anything that the students have to ask for. Once they submit their application, it will go straight -- an email will go straight to the counselor and they will complete that. We do have, since we're about to open our winter admissions cycle, we do have some evening information sessions for parents.

[01:13:55] The dates and locations are listed here. We also have those listed on our webpage and this is our contact information. And this is the fastest I've ever done a presentation in my entire life. So I thank you so much for your attention and we welcome any questions that you may have.

[01:14:17] We have a table back there and I do see some younger people with us today. I just want you to know that we have some fun toys back there. So if you come see us, you might get a nice little toy at the end. Thank you, Ms. Flaherty. Thank you so much. I do want to, we engage in quite a bit of outreach in the admissions and outreach office.

[01:14:41] In the beginning, we did most of our recruiting and outreach in 6th through 12th grade. And after a few years, we realized that in order to get our students on a pathway to higher level math, the conversation needed to start an elementary school.

[01:14:57] So a lot of our outreach now is at the elementary level, and we're very proud. Our elementary outreach is anchored in our—we are the first—Loudon County Public Schools is the first—the admissions and outreach office.

[01:15:16] We are the chartering organization for the Nesby Junior Club in Loudon County for fourth and fifth graders, and we're very proud of that. We're in our second year of that, and so if you're an elementary student in here, we certainly, if you're a fourth grader or a fifth grader, we'd like for you to be in our Nesby Junior Club.

[01:15:36] That is a big, big part of our elementary outreach. We're very proud of that. If you have any questions, we do a lot of information sessions in our middle schools and our high schools. Feel free to come to those information sessions.

[01:15:51] We get into, we answer a lot of questions, but we have a table back here. We'll answer any questions you have tonight. thank you again for providing this opportunity. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate everybody coming out tonight, and I appreciate you all sticking with us. That was a lot of information. I do hope you all found it really helpful and encouraging their exciting programs happening. I won't look in the back at my children who will be upset for me saying that

[01:16:28] now I have a few ideas for myself, but I learned quite a few things, and I think it's great to know that our division, our district, is really working hard to make this a learning environment and provide these opportunities for our students. It's very exciting.

[01:16:44] I know that everybody probably wants to maybe get back there and ask some questions and things like that, and so we're gonna kinda keep rolling with it and kinda segue into the end of our meeting, but I'd like to just invite Dr. Alice Williams up to share any updates that she might have with us, And then we will conclude so we can go and ask our questions and get more information.

[01:17:09] It's nice to have a positive update. We had some conversations and tabletop conversations around having representation in our schools by way of student equity ambassadors as well as equity leads in our buildings. When we began a school year with 103 schools within our clusters, we were shy about 35 to 40 equity leads in the buildings.

[01:17:33] As of yesterday, day prior, we were about 27 shy. And yesterday, Dr. Spence put out a call to action so that every school is responsible for having an equity lead. So if you don't have one and you don't know who it is, find out.

[01:17:48] That should be happening now if you don't already have one, as well as having student equity ambassadors. So we're really proud of that because he expressed his passion and desire to ensure that equity was on top in equitable practices for our school, even though we are known as the Division of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, it is still important that we remain focused on equity as it exists within LCPS. So having his commitment to endorse that was tremendous for us yesterday as a division that's often aligned with every other division. So we have the unique responsibility that we support every division within the cluster. And then there comes a time when

[01:18:27] we actually sometimes need to push so that there's an understanding, even if you don't understand the why I often say to my team I don't really like the word buy-in because we're not selling anything but to have the understanding and our understanding is our mission which is our students first each and every one so I just want to make that public announcement and thank Dr.

[01:18:47] Spence for that call to action so that's it for me any questions about that thank you thank you Dr. Ellis Williams and it is it is good it's really good um I um I can't wait till we get to the next part because we've been working behind the scenes and there are a lot of big things coming and I am telling you we're I'm excited I just have to wait so I'm going to stop talking

[01:19:23] about it now but I promise it is it is going to be a great thing and it's going to be a great change and it's going to be something that MSAC is going to be proud to put our name on put our behind and to work alongside the school board and specifically Dr. Spence's office and I will echo what Dr. Ellis Williams said he has he expressed his support his his sole support and he's supporting this work and he is supporting MSAC and our work in our endeavor so I'm very excited for what the future holds. We're going to wrap up for tonight because again like I mentioned a little earlier I don't know about you but my brain is starting to

[01:19:58] shift to turkeys and dressing and sweet potatoes and other things. And all I know is that tomorrow is Thursday and then Friday and it's time to get cooking. So I want to thank you all again for your support, your advocacy, your hard work. I am very excited and I am very blessed and fortunate to be able to work with you all. I appreciate your patience as we've worked out the kinks, as we have figured out things to do and what to do and what's working and what's not working. There's, again, there's a lot that's in the work and a lot that's coming up that is significant and is important for what MSAC is doing and what MSAC wants to do. So I'm just going to ask you to just

[01:20:37] kind of hold some space for us and to kind of keep an eye out and keep your ears perked up because we're going to be start to start sending out information, rolling out things that you all are going to need to be aware of and you're going to want to be a part of. Thank you for coming. Thank you for sticking with us this evening.

[01:20:55] Please go back and see our guest speakers and ask your questions. There's a lot of information that was given, and I want to make sure you all get your questions asked, get that information to have with you. If you have not eaten something, please eat a sandwich. And thank you again for joining us. Again, we look forward to seeing you.

[01:21:13] We will see you soon, sooner than you think. But until then, enjoy the rest of your week. Have a safe holiday weekend next week, And have a safe rest of December, and we will see you officially, officially for our next General Body Meeting in January.

[01:21:28] Thank you so much for coming tonight.

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