Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Specialized Programs & Centers Committee Meeting, Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Date: Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 46m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/910838496?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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[00:00:00] Okay. All right, everyone. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call this February 6, 2024 meeting of Special Programs and Centers Committee to order. My name is Dr. Samara Rasheed, and I am the chair of this committee. We appreciate your presence here today, and the purpose of today's meeting is to, a couple things, approve the draft minutes for November 16, 2023, provide the special programs update, talk about charter school overview, and talk about the 2024, 2025 charter school calendars. So before we proceed, we value public input. If there's anyone

[00:00:36] from the public who wishes to address the committee, please fill out a speaker card at the registration table. But we'll now open the floor to public comments. If you wish to speak, please come forward, state your name, and limit your comments to two minutes. And I saw that nobody signed up, so okay, we will move forward. All right. So we need to approve the minutes from our last meeting. Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes? Are there any corrections or

[00:01:08] additions? No. Okay. If there's no objections or corrections, I entertain a motion to approve the minutes from November 16, 2023. So moved. Okay. Aye. All right. So the minutes are approved for November 16, 2023. Okay. Let's review by, let's begin by reviewing the agenda for today. And I see that online. Are there any adjustments or additions to the agenda? If so, please raise your hand and

[00:01:45] state your proposed change. So staff is proposing that we provide the overview of the charter schools and then follow up with a calendar item. Oh, just a switch? That would make more sense. Of the last two items? Okay.

[00:02:02] That information is being shared. Great. Okay. So we will do the charter school overview at 4-0-3 to become 4-0-2 and 2024-2025 charter school calendars to be the final item in the information item section. So let's move on to our agenda items. The first item is special programs update I'll turn it over to mr. Neal Slevin to present. Thank you, dr. Rashid You're welcome staff looks forward to providing an overview to our newly formed special programs committee on A status update on our approach to special programs and Latin County public schools

[00:02:39] I'm joined this afternoon by miss Katie Clark is our special program supervisor who will be doing the bulk of the presentation And we're going to zero in a little bit specifically on our dual language version program. So I'm joined by Miss Kelly James, our world language and culture supervisor, who will be taking that portion of the presentation.

[00:02:58] So this presentation is in board docs, but I'm also projecting it on the screen. We are excited to be here to talk about our special programs in LCPS and the opportunity it affords our students and families. Our special programs and academies are directly aligned to our strategic plan, specifically aligned action 1.1, core academic excellence, speaks of providing rigorous and culturally responsive instruction to ensure deeper learning, and 1.2, multiple accessible pathways to success with developing accessible specialized programs, for example, the Academies of Loudoun, International

[00:03:35] Baccalaureate, CTE programs, language immersion programs, and fine arts and programs. We will provide a quick overview of our special program's policy and regulation, which guides much of this work.

[00:03:52] We'll provide you an update this afternoon on our International Baccalaureate program, our Health and Medical Science Academy, and our Dual Language Immersion Program. And finally, we'll share with you a potential proposal for an Environmental Science Academy at Woodgrove High School.

[00:04:11] This is a chart that you're going to become very familiar with, and you'll likely see at every every one of our pro committee meetings as well as when we present to the full board we call it our current special program status chart I want to call your attention to the fourth column to showcase the currently implemented special programs these programs all will share out progress at future meetings but we're not focusing on implemented policies programs today we're really going to be zeroing in on the third column in column three and this is where

[00:04:47] we'll be spending our time today as an update in terms of the work that's happening now in the planning phase of our special programs development so with that I'm going to turn it over to our special programs office that is going to give you a little bit of background as I shared on policy and regulation that guides our work thank you mr. Slevin good afternoon thanks for having us here today so the special programs office mr. Slevin talked about this during his budget update so So these are just some of the things that fall within this Office.

[00:05:23] So we ensure Special Programs Academies are consistently implemented in alignment to policy, review Special Programs Academies proposals, support admission procedures and outreach efforts, and then I serve as the Division International Baccalaureate Coordinator.

[00:05:38] So with that, I'm going to talk about the Special Programs Policy. This was adopted in January of 2022 by the School Board.

[00:05:54] This outlines the guiding principles for new and continuing special programs or academies, the process for special program or academy proposal development, the process for special program or academy proposal evaluation, review, termination of a special program or academy, and exclusions.

[00:06:14] The five guiding principles are equitable access, strategic goal alignment, student interest, and sustainability. This policy allows for the establishment of special programs or academies that provide opportunities for students to focus on their interests, talents, and strengths while meeting the goals of the LCPS strategic framework.

[00:06:37] Next I just want to give a quick overview of our Regulation 5115. The Special Programs Regulation outlines the approval process for new special programs and academies. The proposal must set forth goals and objectives and include an annual evaluation to ensure that the goals, objectives, and budgetary considerations are met.

[00:06:59] Include a timeline for implementation and a sunset provision whereby the school board must take action to continue the program or academy. It must incorporate stakeholder feedback and representation from targeted school-based groups including students, teachers, parents, legal guardians, administrators, and community stakeholders.

[00:07:20] And lastly, all program proposals must be submitted using the special program or Academy proposal template. So now I'm going to move into our first program that we're going to discuss this afternoon and give you an update on.

[00:07:36] So first we're just going to start with an overview of IB here in Loudoun County. We have two authorized IB World schools at Heritage High School and Loudoun Valley High School. These are open to rising 9th grade students to show interest.

[00:07:51] private, and home school can all show interest in this program. Out of zone students are selected through a random lottery selection process and all zoned Heritage and Loudoun Valley students do have access to this program by virtue of attending that's those schools. This is a four-year commitment and students who are from out of zone become full-time students at Heritage and Valley. This is our International Baccalaureate timeline as you can see here. We have our authorization phase, which we were successful. We were granted authorization back in November

[00:08:30] of 2023. So next year, we will be offering our first IB courses, and then we will have our first graduating IB diplomas in the 25-26 year, and that's when this program will move to fully implemented. Some IB updates. So currently, we're working through with the content offices on the curriculum development for those first-year IB courses.

[00:08:59] Our program of studies is live for LCPS families to see. That is part of the program of studies. We visited all 17 middle schools to let them know about the special programs that are available. Our content offices, along with our IB coordinators, attended a conference together to continue their learning, and then we have IB training ongoing at both Loudoun Valley and Heritage for staff.

[00:09:25] Just some program enrollment updates. Students were able to show interest from December 1st to January 31st. And the research office is gonna be running our lottery here in February. And our first round of offers will be sent out in early March.

[00:09:41] And we were able to align all of our timelines, even with AET, AOS, to make sure students know what programs they are being offered and can make an informed decision on which program they would like to attend. Next steps is talking, having conversations about IB exams.

[00:10:00] The exam fee cost is $119 per exam. And if the DP candidates that are going for the full diploma, they would need to take six IB exams. So we'll be bringing back that as an item to talk about for the board for budget.

[00:10:16] The next program and our newest program is our Health and Medical Sciences Academy. I'm just going to give you an overview of that. We have our two locations. Our host sites are at Briarwoods High School and Tuscarora High School.

[00:10:32] Again, this program is open to rising 9th grade students, public, private, and home school, where they can show interest in this program. There are 150 seats available for rising 9th grade students, 75 seats per school site. As you can see here, there will be 50 seats for the biomedical pathway and 25 seats for the biomedical with the language of medicine pathway.

[00:10:55] This is again a four year commitment and students who are from out of zone again will become full time students at Briarwoods or Tuscarora. Here is our health and medical science development timeline. So this is our first year allowing students to show interest in that program and next year will be our first group of ninth grade students.

[00:11:20] We will be fully implemented as you can see here in the 27-28 school year. For some HAMSci updates, currently curriculum development is ongoing, cross-curricular collaboration working sessions are scheduled this month with science, health and PE, and English language arts in conjunction with the Department of Professional Learning.

[00:11:44] Again, same timeline as you saw for IB, student opportunities, they were able to show interest from December 1st to January 31st. The research office will support us in running that lottery, and the first round of offers will go out in early March.

[00:12:00] upcoming events we do have professional development and informational sessions for staff also in early March again families will be notified students and families and then August 15th is our white coat ceremony for the health and medical science students for both Briarwoods and Tuscarora but that will be held at Briarwoods High School some program logistics for our IB program and our health and medical science so again we've covered this but students were able to show interest we visited all the middle schools to let them know about their opportunities that they have in front of them the lottery will run

[00:12:39] during the month of February that gives us time to put everything back into our student opportunities and then send out our offered and waitlist in March student opportunities for these two programs will stay open so students that maybe didn't decide by January 31st that they wanted to submit interest they will be added to the established waitlist in the date and time that they submit interest so students can still submit interest at this time it's an update about transportation lcps transportation is

[00:13:15] available for students for these two programs from hub stop locations the hub stop locations are lcps elementary middle and high schools parents and guardians are responsible for getting their children to and from the hub stop locations in the morning and afternoon when students are offered a seat in these program or academies parents will have the opportunity to select transportation as an option just want to talk briefly about VHSL implications a student who has been accepted through the lottery selection

[00:13:50] process is eligible for VHSL activities and athletics immediately upon enrollment I just want to state this is all on our website as well after enrollment and participating in either of these programs if an out-of-zone student decides to unenroll in the program and remain enrolled in the school then the student is ineligible to participate in VHSL activities and athletics for 90 school days. However if a student unenrolls and they are out of zone and returns to their home school serving their attendance zone that student would be eligible immediately upon enrollment back to their zone

[00:14:28] school. The coordinators of these programs don't really take questions on this we refer them to the assistant director of athletics and extracurricular activities mr. Derek Ferry our next program that we're going to talk about is our dual language immersion i'm going to give you a quick overview and then i'm going to turn it over to mrs kelly james so we have our two schools potomac elementary school and sanders corner elementary school we offer the 50 50 two-way immersion model that begins in kindergarten and goes through fifth

[00:15:03] grade students learn half the day in spanish and the other half of the day in english Seats are limited, and therefore, a lottery is held for those who complete the DLI registration form before the deadline and a wait list is established. We do have 25 in-boundary students and 25 out-of-boundary students, and we also try, to the extent possible, to have 25 Spanish and 25 English Other.

[00:15:30] Total seats per grade level is 50 students per school. Transportation is not provided for this program for the students living outside the DLI school's attendance area. This is our timeline, and Mr. Slevin shared this in his budget presentation as well.

[00:15:49] This program will be fully implemented in the FY29 year, and as you can see here, this shows that this is a commitment of us adding those two positions each year until we're fully implemented. And now I'll turn it over to Mrs. Kelly James for some updates about our registration process.

[00:16:10] Good afternoon. Kindergarten registration opened on February 1st. As a part of the online registration process, families were shown a brief video about dual language immersion before indicating if they were interested in the program or not. Families who are interested must indicate which school and also complete the in-person registration at their home school by April 19th in order to be included in the lottery.

[00:16:36] Any family who completes their in-person registration after April 19th will be added to the wait list in date and time order. As our program progresses, we have put the following procedures into place.

[00:16:53] For sibling status, siblings of students who are currently enrolled in the dual language immersion program will receive sibling status at the same school. This means that they are given priority placement in this program as long as interest has been received in accordance with published DLI interest submission deadlines.

[00:17:11] an instance of multiples twins or triplets in which they show interest in the program they're treated as one student for the purpose of the lottery if selected in the lottery they're offered a commensurate number of seats while we don't anticipate any openings for first grade we have established a lottery in the event that a current student leaves the program the dates of the first grade lottery align with those of the kindergarten lottery and now I'm going to turn this back over to mr. Sloven

[00:17:49] the reminder reminded folks about the microphone we do have one more proposal or Academy or pathway that is in development that we just wanted to continue to talk about and we plan to provide in updates throughout the process Woodgrove High School teachers at Woodgrove High School let me back up for a minute one of the guiding philosophies of having the special programs policy is that we want ideas not only to come from the board or division level but we also want ideas to bubble up from our schools and our

[00:18:29] teachers and our in our principals and so in this particular case teachers and administration of Woodgrove High School have indicated interest in developing a robust environmental science Academy pathway at their school the science office in the Department of Teaching Learning has been collaborating with the environmental science teachers to develop course descriptions and unique courses at Woodgrove High School and we are piloting an environmental science course an environmental course for the ninth grade next year at woodgrove high school we recognize that there is a larger conversation happening in the county around sustainability

[00:19:09] and there's a large interest in environmental education so we do plan on partnering with the director of sustainability and support services and conducting a round table a community meeting really focused on environmental science and sustainability and what that means for decision making locally in lcps but there is a special program attached to that there is a lot of interest amongst our students and so you'll be receiving updates while it is focused as a course right now there's potential that this could be a future academy for us to plan out for locations

[00:19:42] and those items so that was a lot of information but the intent was to kind of ground us in the work that has been happening in the special programs committee but katie or i or kelly are happy to take any questions the committee might have at this time okay thank you um at this time i'd like to open the floor for discussion members of the committee do you have any questions or

[00:20:13] comments mr streffi thank you very much i really appreciate the the background and all of the information there's a on everything but the environmental sciences proposal i think we've seen obviously a bunch of presentations not just in the budget presentations but even prior to that so pretty familiar with the direction and really appreciate all the work that's gone in from the bottom up or top down both directions to really flesh out what this could mean for students that said i think i'm before i get into more detailed questions about each one i'm pretty

[00:20:52] curious about now that we have these proposed special programs just wanted to entertain a little bit of discussion around how we're seeing the variety of ideas or proposals that we have in in the bucket right now, and what do discussions look like in terms of how we prioritize, you know, all of these different programs, and obviously they go through kind of their own cycle of focus groups or work sessions, piloting courses, so how are we, you know, looking to the future in terms of how we roll out all of these different special programs, and

[00:21:31] what are some of the previous considerations that you've talked about with the prior board or amongst yourselves, I think that context could really help us as well as we dig into all of this. I'll try to answer that, and then I'll see if Ms. Clark or even Dr. Ellis may want to chime in.

[00:21:50] But really, it depends. And so I can say that initially the conversation around special programs really came from board interest, and so there was board member interest in, hey, what would it look like if we started offering IB?

[00:22:06] like we're hearing from parents that this would be of interest Loudoun County is a big school division one of the bigger ones in Virginia that don't have an IB program so can you put some ideas on paper what would that look like and that started the conversation similar to dual language immersion you know the school board members saying hearing from their constituents why doesn't Loudoun County have a dual language immersion program when next door in Fairfax they have multiple programs throughout so board member interests voicing the feedback from the community of course is a big is a big draw it also comes from student interest and so health and medical

[00:22:43] science is something that we've talked about for a number of years in lcps it's a it's a pretty significant pathway that we have in our academies allowed in but we do have workforce data that shows there is a big demand for workforce when it comes to health and medical sciences so that was consistent push from our partners organizations such as the clodmore foundation that is really connected to the health and medical science industry as well as student interest and so part of what we're required to do in our cte programs is survey students regularly for their interest and so student interest says hey we have an interest in pursuing health medical science

[00:23:21] careers are there enough accessible programs and so that developed into our idea around health and medical sciences and what really happens is when there's synergy amongst all those groups meaning there's partners in the community that say if you start this program we're going to be with you we're going to advise you on the program we're going to provide work-based learning opportunities and maybe even some funding to get you started a number of times in my budget presentation i talked about grant funding that kind of seeded some programs to give them an early start so that we can move forward and so generally when there's community interests schools are excited about it board

[00:24:01] members see the possibility that it all comes together environmental science is a different example where we have we actually have two examples we have the staff but we also have external groups there are advocacy groups in loudon that have been going to the board saying what are you guys going to do about environmental education and so that was enough to prompt us to move towards like a pilot phase and where can we go? Because we also have constraints. We know we can't do everything at once, and so we do need to make decisions. So that was a long answer to say there's a lot of different ways, but we want to be open to all of them because there are really good ideas out there.

[00:24:38] So Ms. Clark, Dr. Ellis, would you add anything? Thank you. Appreciate that. I had some specific questions. When you had said, when you listen to like constituents or people in the area, does that determine where you open the pilot program or any of programs that you mentioned like hamsi and i saw it was prior words it was two different schools for one program so we do include updates about that process as we go through the selection process for sites um and so for hampsi in particular there are a number of factors and i'll ask

[00:25:16] miss clark to jump in if i miss anything but we think about of course capacity um like are there is there space for a program depending on what the program is in terms of physical space we also want to make sure our school leadership team is invested in having the program so in the case of ham side we did do a call for interest and high school administrative team said yes we would like to host this and there was a cross departmental team that looked at interest and made a recommendation for the placement a similar process would be in place with something like IB if we

[00:25:51] decide to expand IB so it really has depended on the program dual language was similar. We worked with the level offices to determine the right leadership if there was an interest and again capacity plays a big part in that. Are there other factors? Okay, thank you.

[00:26:13] You had mentioned out-of-zone students are selected through a random lottery selection. Is there something versus in-zone? I'm assuming these people live out of the area of the specific school and that's what's determined by out-of-zone students. If you can expand on that.

[00:26:31] So for IB all in zone students have access to the program. So they're not included in the lottery They have access by virtue of going to Valley and Heritage So only our out of zone students are part of that lottery, but for our other two programs all students Are part of that lottery process so both in zone and out of zone Same with dual language. We have an end zone and an out of zone lottery because we have the 25 seats from Sanders and Potomac and then we have the 25

[00:27:08] seats for students coming from other elementary schools within Loudoun okay thank you it would be great to see you know eventually when these students graduate from these programs to find the measure whatever measure we decide to use to see if it like the success of all those programs I would that would be great all right any other questions comments just a last question for me in terms of the capacity discussion specifically around dual language immersion so how are we thinking about growing these programs when it comes to

[00:27:44] capacity or growing the seeds have we put much thought into how we would kind of roll dual language immersion out and grow the program so it as far as Potomac and Sanders corner goes we looked at six or seven year capacity for making that decision like we knew that if we were committing at kindergarten we wanted to see it through it will at some point we're gonna be talking about middle school and what we're gonna do with those students when they're going into middle school probably probably next year we'll be having more discussions about that as far as moving to other schools to increase capacity is that what you're asking we are still at the point where

[00:28:21] we're evaluating this rollout in interest and we do are seeing interest and there's no indication to us that we wouldn't want to expand it to other schools or other languages what you may realize is dual language immersion is one of our most expensive special programs in terms of implementation so it really is a matter of a commitment from the board to move forward with that we just weren't ready to recommend expansion after just one year knowing the competing priorities plus gauging the interest as well as you said thank

[00:28:55] you any final thoughts or comments on this agenda item if there's no further comments we'll move on to the next agenda item which is charter school overview and I'll turn it over to dr. Ashley Ellis to present thank you dr.

[00:29:17] Rasheed good evening committee members this afternoon we thought it would be helpful to provide you an overview of charter schools in Loudoun County Public Schools working with charter schools is one important task of the SPC committee and there are agreements and amendments to charter agreements that go through this committee before going to the full board so you'll you'll see those regularly I've asked several friends to be with me today I have Elaine layman director of elementary and charter schools Wes Allen division council and Kevin Lewis chief operations officer they all work very closely with charter

[00:29:54] schools in one way or another and they will jump in throughout this presentation additionally I wanted to introduce several a few members from the charter school teams we have mr. Steven Robinson principal of Middleburg Community Charter Paul Vickers principal of Hillsborough Charter Academy and Joe Lupino Esposito Prince president of Hillsborough Charter Academy Board of Directors with us did I get everybody perfect awesome so there are multiple code sections in the Code of Virginia that apply to and guide our work around

[00:30:30] charter schools we have linked many of those applicable code sections in the last slides of the presentation because we won't go through all of those we just wanted to hit the highlights for you this afternoon as defined in the code of Virginia a public charter school is a non sectarian non-religious or non homes home-based alternative school located within a public school division a Virginia public charter school may be approved or renewed for a period not to five years we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute however the school can be granted multiple renewals that permit operation for more than a total

[00:31:08] of five years as we have seen in LCPS in the state of Virginia we have there are seven public charter schools across the Commonwealth and LCPS has two of those seven schools and you see the other charter schools listed on this screen here. Both of our charter schools opened within a couple of years of each other. Middleburg Community Charter opened in the fall of 2014 and was the first charter school in Loudoun and also in the Northern Virginia area. And

[00:31:48] Hillsborough Community Charter or HCA opened in the fall of 2016. Both schools were converted to charter schools after LCPS and the school board had closed the schools and determine the buildings were no longer of use to the public school system and I'm going to ask mr. Lewis to speak a little bit about that part thank you dr. Ellis so as dr. Ellis was was mentioning the process to convert those schools was a fairly lengthy one the applications for example for the middle Hillsboro Charter School was received in August of 2014 there was

[00:32:27] a series of public hearings and work sessions that went through with the board to determine and evaluate their their application which included things related to the facility and their request to use our facility and the the Middleburg Charter School went through a very similar process so and that was actually their application was approved in 2015 and then the school board subsequently subsequently took action in February of 2016 to close the school and then convert that school school building to a charter school so it still remains property of lcps but it is closed for the it's it's an lcps building but

[00:33:06] it's not an lcps school if that makes sense and so we still own the property and then during that process the lease was negotiated that also provides responsibilities for both parties in the lease and the next slide tells um cites the the code um for what mr lewis just described the next couple of slides talk about funding and operations and i would like to ask mr allen to talk through some of these talking points thank you just kind of as additional context

[00:33:42] for your awareness any organization that's interested in forming a public charter school can submit an application to the school board and mr lewis referenced an application there's many components pursuant to virginia law that are required to be set forth in those applications provided that the school board approves the charter application the culmination of that is a charter agreement that's a legal and binding contract between a charter school and the school board and in that charter contract it shall set forth the rights of each party's and each party's rights and duties with respect to funding and operations this

[00:34:22] This tracks the language of Virginia Code Section 22.1-212.6, and essentially, in short, pursuant to Virginia law, public charter schools are responsible for their own operations, including budget preparation, contracts for services, and personnel matters.

[00:34:42] That said, a public charter school may negotiate and contract with a school division for the use of school building and grounds, operation and maintenance, and provision of services and activities that the code is clear that last section there that a school division can't charge more for its services but I will say we have a number of auxiliary services and contracts with our charter schools to include school nutrition services technology services and support services which includes things like facilities building maintenance well water system trash

[00:35:17] recycling snow removal those types of services those are negotiated and included in contracts with the charter schools in terms of that the next slide we provide some information on how the funding is obtained and our reporting in terms of the average daily membership which we report out for relevant video OE purposes. Additionally, here we discuss that the school boards, as I've kind of referenced

[00:35:53] before, set forth agreements stating conditions for funding the public charter school. Next slide. Relevant here, these talk about the funding and service agreements as well, but I'll point your attention to the second bullet. It just indicates for legal purposes and also so optics, the funding and service agreements between local school boards and charter schools shall not provide a financial incentive or constitute a financial disincentive to the establishment of a public charter school, including any regional public charter school.

[00:36:32] How do charter schools obtain funding otherwise? That last bullet indicates that the management committee and the management committee or board of a charter school is the governing body for the charter school. authorized to accept gifts donations or grants for funding purposes so in terms of locally we have policy 5410 and it's accompanying regulation that provide guidance for the creation and oversight of charter schools in Loudoun County and as you will see when you when you review the charter agreements the mission and

[00:37:10] vision of a charter school is set by the charter board and not necessarily identical to the mission and vision of LCPS charter schools are required to resubmit a charter application every five years as I previously mentioned this year HCA is in the process of providing edits and revising their application to be submitted so you will review that at our next meeting in March and unless following unless they follow the LCPS calendar which neither of them do at this time and that is totally fine by their charter school agreement charter schools annually submit their calendar for approval staff works with the

[00:37:50] charter school staff specifically miss layman reviews the calendars offers edits if necessary and then brings the calendars to this committee for review and then ultimately approval by the school board and you'll see that item next and as mr. Allen mentioned the school board also annually reviews and approves the various agreements such as the support services school nutrition and technology agreements with the charter schools and financial records of the charter schools are audited annually as well so a little bit about the

[00:38:27] employees at the charter school so the principal of the charter school is an employee of the charter school board the principal is not an employee of LCPS the classroom or grade level teachers are LCPS employees special education and EL teachers are LCPS employees and then each each charter school may have other employees such as office staff a stem resource teacher for example those are employees of the charter school board miss layman anything you want to add so far in terms of supervision

[00:39:02] the principal of the charter school supervises all of the other employees of the school the principal is supervised by by their board obviously there is additional oversight and support of special education services and staff by the lcps office of special education through Tedra Richardson's office, Dr. Paige Carter. Similarly, LCPS Business and Finance provides oversight and guidance in financial matters, and Ms. Lehman, the Director of Elementary and Charter Schools, provides guidance, not supervision, but guidance and support to the charter school

[00:39:38] principals when requested. The charter school principals, for example, are invited to our principal meetings and often attend those to participate with the LCPS principals. We just wanted to highlight a couple of the renewals and agreements that you will see through this committee so coming up next you will see the annual calendars for the upcoming school year and you will review their charter school applications every five years again HCA is coming up next month you'll review their technology service agreements support services agreement and I

[00:40:17] believe the school nutrition services agreement goes through the Finance and operations committee historically is that correct and then the last couple of slides are just specific references to code should you need a little light reading and go into more detail on charter school oversight and with that I will turn it back over to you dr. Rasheed all right thank you so much great presentation very informative I just had a question about one of the I think the third slide from the last when you said the principal is the employee of the

[00:40:55] charter school and everybody else's of LCPS is there a reason for that is it something specific or it's just been like that looking historically at that when the charters were first written and approved that was something that was proposed if they had the option it could it could have gone either way and the charter schools opted to have their their principal be an employee of their board rather than an LCPS employee so it's just something that's a part of each of their charters and that option is allowed and in the charter schools when it comes to the teachers are their direct supervisors the principal yes that's correct

[00:41:32] do you see any challenges with having i'm just i'm just thinking out loud here do you see any challenges with having teachers part of lcps and then the principal part of the charter school and then when it comes to i don't want to say discipline but when it comes to like some sort of challenges in a sense where you need some help with guidance with the teachers or anything like that um the principals have that's a great question the principals have all of the same supports available to them as an LCPS principal in terms of guidance

[00:42:12] from HRTD guide that's something they might call our office about to ask a question the only you know potential issue is we don't supervise the principal so if there were an issue with you know something that should have been done that wasn't done all we can do is report that to the board I see of the charter school all right okay thank you for that and then um so uh members of the committee do you have any questions or comments just curious about um mr allen maybe it's for you um grants gifts and

[00:42:46] donations are there what are some of the parameters around that are they similar to what lcps um you know or or is it you know how are those is there are there any restrictions to the types of gifts or donations um and what types of organizations could do that i'm just curious from a charter perspective. Thank you, Mr. Straffi. The Virginia Code limits those that are permissible pursuant to law so that they can't obtain funds that are contrary to law or to any restrictions within the charter agreement. I'm unaware of any specific restrictions that we set forth in either the charter schools

[00:43:24] agreements at this time. Thank you. Any other final thoughts or comments on this agenda item no okay thank you and if there's no further comments we'll move on to the next agenda item which is to 2024 2025 charter school calendars so I'll turn it over to miss Elaine layman to present thank you very much you see attached to our agenda today there is the calendars that have been drafted by

[00:44:00] both MCCS and HCA and you'll notice as was mentioned in the previous presentation that they both have a slightly alternative calendar to the LCPS calendar, but Middleburg starts earlier, for example. They start at the beginning of August, and they end differently, and they have some different breaks within their calendar, but they still attend the same number of days as LCPS. Harrisboro, on the other hand, has a longer school day each day, so they make the calendar hours that are required with a different number of days, and both calendars meet the requirements spelled out in each of their charters, so recommendation

[00:44:35] is to approve both principals are here if you'd like to ask any specific questions about their calendar there's any comments or questions on this on this okay you have to make a motion so I wasn't aware there was a motion to be planning to bring this back as action in the is that what we're anticipating correct we have time to go through the full process absolutely we'll bring it

[00:45:14] As an action item at the next special program and if you have questions in the meantime and miss layman did you have to go over anything else? All right, so if there's no other further Comments our next meeting is scheduled for March 5th March 5th at 3:30 p.m Please mark your calendars and if there is no further business I entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting all those in favor of adjourning say aye aye the meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you for coming

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