Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Finance & Operations Committee Meeting, Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Date: Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 3m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/919771384?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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[00:00:51] - Hi, everyone. Thank you for your patience. I blame the Special Programs Committee for our tardiness, but my name is Arben Estreffi. I wanna call this March 5th meeting of the Finance and Operations Committee to order, joined by Chair Mansfield, and Mrs. Griffiths is absent for this meeting.

[00:01:19] She let us know ahead of time that she wouldn't be able to make it. So, why don't we just go ahead and get started then. We'll start with public comment. Is there any public comment? There's, sure. - No sign-up sheet.

[00:01:42] - All right, so I'm just gonna read our public comment disclaimer. So, thank you for engaging with the school board. We'll do, yeah, two minutes has been the same.

[00:02:00] So, we'll go with two minutes, and I'll just read our disclaimer. Thank you for engaging with the school board through the public comment process. The school board welcomes comments from Loudoun County residents and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system.

[00:02:18] Speakers must limit comments to the time allotted. Based on the number of speakers and the agenda for today, speakers will be allotted two minutes for each public comment. Please be advised that the speakers who missed their time slot will not be called at a later time. All audience members shall maintain civility, decorum, and respect for the functioning and dignity of the school board at all times.

[00:02:37] Please remain seated unless arriving, departing, speaking at the podium or during a break. Shouting, heckling, jeering, applause, or other noise which disrupts or delays the meeting. Violations of civility, decorum, and respect include shouting, heckling, jeering, applause, or other noise that disrupts or delays the meeting, obstructing speakers from being able to see the school board and vice versa, interrupting speakers, attempting to speak when not called to do so by the chair, and approaching a speaker or otherwise attempting to intimidate, disparage, or distract a speaker, staff member, or other attendees.

[00:03:09] Speakers should refrain from vulgarity, obscenities, defamation, profanity, and other like breaches of respect, nor may speakers target, criticize, or attack individual students and or individual division employees during public comment. Speakers should communicate those concerns to their school principal or an appropriate school official.

[00:03:27] School board requests that comments on an individual student or employee related matter not be shared at public meetings where the disclosure could violate applicable confidentiality requirements. Speakers should face the dais or the school board members and direct their comments to the school board.

[00:03:50] Yes, Sally. - Good afternoon. Sandy Sullivan, an elementary school teacher who currently serves the members of the Loudon Education Association as their president. Policy 6330, an anti-worker policy, moves to silence employees in their work sites.

[00:04:11] Employee morale is at an all-time low. Your employees must be respected and heard. LA believes the proposed policy should be amended to make it clear that it does not prohibit or impact LEAs or any union's ability to communicate with employees without prior approval of the principal or LCPS administration.

[00:04:29] The union has a right to communicate with members as well as non-members who signed authorization cards or who might sign a card or discuss any other work matter. Any union will need to communicate with the employees in the bargaining unit once it is elected as the exclusive representative.

[00:04:46] It is particularly egregious for a public employer because of the right to associate in the First Amendment. Also, the policy is very subjective and leaves much to individual interpretation. Often when LEA shares our concerns about policy, we are told that is not the intent, but we strongly believe the impact to educators in this proposed policy would not match the intent.

[00:05:08] What is in place to guarantee the impact and intent will match? LEA looks forward to this committee working to craft policy that will serve the entirety of LCPS. Thank you very much.

[00:05:24] Is there any additional public comment? Seeing no other public comment, we'll move on to item three, which is the minutes. We'll go ahead and see if there are any recommended changes or edits to the minutes or any comments.

[00:05:43] Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the February 20th F&O Committee meeting. I move to approve the minutes from the February 20th, 2024 Finance and Operations Committee.

[00:06:02] I'll second that motion and we'll go ahead and take a vote. All in favor, yay? Aye. That motion passes unanimously with Mrs. Griffiths absent.

[00:06:18] We'll now move on to Item 4, Action Items. Our only action item today is Item 4.1, Support Services Contract Award for IFB 24-5279 Elementary School Stage Accessibility Project.

[00:06:43] And this is to be presented by Mr. Pasquarelli. Hi, sir. I'm Don Treanor, Executive Director of Chief Facilities. Mr. Pasquarelli is out of the office, so I'll be presenting the item. - Did you want to make a motion?

[00:07:01] - Yes, I'll entertain a motion at this time. - I move that the Finance and Operations Committee recommend to the Loudoun County School Board to approve the contract toward of IFB 24-527, nine elementary school stage accessibility project to TMG construction in the amount of $1,369,963, and authorizes the chair of the school board to sign the final contract documents upon presentation.

[00:07:38] And I just want to say thank you for like spelling out $369,900. I appreciate that. Thank you. I will go ahead and second that motion and open it up for discussion.

[00:07:53] Thank you, sir. So this project is part of our capital improvement program that has already been approved by the board, which is why it's coming to you for action tonight. So the project involves putting stage access in, which for eight of these schools is a mechanical lift system to the stage.

[00:08:13] One of the schools is going to be a ramp, and Luckett's is the one with the ramp. All the others will have a wheelchair lift designed with it. These are the only schools within LCPS that have limitations where we cannot get students that have ADA accessible needs to the stage.

[00:08:30] So this will allow us to close that gap at all of the sites here. And so happy to answer any questions if there's anything else that you're interested in. We had three bidders, and we're awarding to the low responsive bidder.

[00:08:49] So I know this is an elementary school stage accessibility project. I can't help but wonder about middle school and high school. Do we have same projects, or are they up to code as far as accessibility is concerned?

[00:09:08] Yeah, we're not aware of any other issues with accessibility at those schools. We went through the entire system a couple of years ago and looked for specific opportunities. A lot of times this happens in our older schools where there were just steps and there was no other way for other folks to get there.

[00:09:28] But we don't believe there are any other areas where we have those challenges. Is there any other discussion? I don't have any further questions. So we'll take it up for a vote.

[00:09:47] All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. That motion passes unanimously. is there an appetite to take this to consent to the full board? Is that the recommendation? The recommendation for staff is to bring it to consent to the full board. So thumbs up.

[00:10:04] Yes. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on to the next item. Item 5, information items. 5.1 support services, adoption of new policy 6330, distribution of information and posting within schools on school grounds or during school-sponsored events, and deletion of policy 8-65.

[00:10:30] And this is off to you. Thank you, Mr. Streffi. I wanted to start tonight by just stepping back with a little bit of the history of this policy. It has been one that we've talked about for quite a while and was taken through the entire process with the previous board.

[00:10:50] And I think as you and I talked, Mr. Streffi, the previous board or the previous committee took it to the school board for recommendation. But we didn't get it done and adopted in time before the pass board went out of office and you came in.

[00:11:07] So we recommend that we start the process over so that this committee, the finance committee, and the full board has the full conversation with this policy. It is a little bit confusing. I will say, and I know in deference to the speaker earlier, that this policy has nothing to do with access to our buildings.

[00:11:25] This is only about posting and distribution of materials in our buildings. So we need to make sure that we're focused on what this policy is addressing. And so one other question that came up, I think Ms. Donahue asked the question a week or so ago, what problem are we trying to solve?

[00:11:44] And so probably the main thing in here is at one point in time, well, actually, according to the current policy 8-65, anyone can hand out materials in front of any of our schools any day of the year. And so as long as they're 40 feet from the entrance, the state code requires you to be 40 feet from the entrance on election day, and we had adopted that as any day.

[00:12:11] So one of the main focuses of the change to this policy, besides the fact it hasn't been reviewed for nine years, so it was up for review, and we've had an ongoing conversation about it, is that staff was recommended that we disallow handing out or distribution of materials that 40 feet away on those days of the year, with exception of Election Day, which is what the Virginia Code addresses.

[00:12:37] The previous committee recommended that we expand that from not just the day of the elections, but also to include back-to-school nights, and I'm drawing a blank, open houses, school open houses. And so you'll see some language in there, and I'll just share that with you.

[00:12:56] If you go to lines 49 through 55 in the draft policy, you'll see the language that was written that just precluded anything from being handed out except on election days. And then on lines 69 through 71, you'll see where we struck out the non-election days where everything was prohibited.

[00:13:17] The blue language that you see in lines 59 to 67 is the language that was provided to us by the previous finance committee that expanded that ability for folks to hand things out on back-to-school nights in open houses.

[00:13:34] So if that's, and you'll see that block there on lines 57 and 58, alternative language provided. So we wanted to make sure that the work of the previous committee was at least known to this committee so you would know where to go. So, the rest of the policy does talk about folks that are allowed in to provide postings and those includes, and that's in area, Section 1, starting on Line 6, where folks that would be allowed to, with permission of the principal, there's also been a number of questions about why is that a burden being put on the principal, and this is not a change to that existing

[00:14:13] policy, and the principal does have that authority in the schools to be able to address them, because they're the ones that are closest to the situation, have the most knowledge about their building and what's happening in there. And so we believe that's right to stay with the authority of the principal.

[00:14:29] But you see there we have a list of organizations that are allowed to provide postings with the permission of the board, or the, I'm sorry, the permission of the principal. Trying to think of other things to call out.

[00:14:49] I think that's probably the biggest part of the overview I wanted to do, and so I'm happy to walk through line-by-line if that was preferred or if you'd rather just ask questions. We do have a line-by-line comparison with 865 in the item that shows what we've taken in the language and how we've changed it, but overall, that's the consensus of what we, as a group, did from Cabinet and then through the Finance Committee prior to the first of the year.

[00:15:18] Open it up for any discussion or questions. Yes, Chair. Got lots of questions. Okay, so the first one is, and I'll just go down the line, from line six to eight, we're talking about, you said it's a building level decision, however, what is the process for that approval, and can we, like, is there a form with a time limit of, like, if somebody

[00:15:55] asks something, or is that just subject to whatever the principal feels like at that particular moment in a time. So it is a process that we haven't defined for each principal so it may be slightly different but you would you would approach the school who who needs to get the principal's approval but it's it's not it is guided by this policy and by the previous policy so the the structure and the framework for those decisions is provided here but I'm not sure if that's answering your question. I'm wondering if there should be some regulations or something or a form attached to this as to what that process is going to be because I can just see like Girl

[00:16:34] Scouts could come in and they could ask something and it take three or four weeks before the principal say something or in another school it could take one day or you know I just think that it leaves a little bit up to you know I think I'd like to make the process better from a form or something that's and and uh division-wide sure so how that's typically handled in policy is we could add language that says that uh the superintendent is also hereby directed to

[00:17:10] create a regulation to implement the processes and we generally don't do the regulation until the policy is is finished and so but we could add that language without any issue and then we could help with with that language on to give the principles a tool more or less to to be able to use that as an approval process?

[00:17:29] And I will talk internally, too. It may be something that we can use. They may poke me for this, but the work order system to do something like that. But we'll figure out a way to help the principals process those requests. So, I mean, I've gotten a lot of questions about this particular policy.

[00:17:54] So it looks to me that what was added from the last policy was the LEF that was added as an approved person is that correct from the last policy i did not think we added that um but i didn't look for that in particular do you remember why i asked mr stocks to help us with that um that discussion was around the facility use policy and um outside organizations and school

[00:18:33] related organizations um this policy refers to that as far as reference to those categorizations but it is not in this particular policy. I didn't understand that. So I'm looking at our old policy 865 and then we have this column thing here that says what line number, what changed in the rationale.

[00:18:59] It looks like it added LEF. I apologize. You are correct. Yes. So Loudoun County government agencies having an educational purpose. Would that include something like the Office of Elections or something for registration for kids who to vote so if if the office of election was invited in to the school then they wouldn't need to be um i mean that would be part of that'd be part of the instructional process i

[00:19:37] think you know held in a particular classroom so i don't think that would apply to this policy if i'm understanding your question i think what i'm getting is i'm getting a lot of um feedback from people who are concerned, well, I can say more about it in the political aspect, in the political materials. I think people are concerned that this is going to preclude voter registration drive every year, because kids here, they can register to vote when they're 16, but they cannot, but they

[00:20:14] can't vote until 18. And I think they used to have voter drives every year, and that process has stopped. And so I'm wondering if this is going to preclude any of that. And we'll dig a little deeper in that, but I believe that would fall under item 1D where it says Loudoun County government agencies having an educational purpose. And certainly the educational part of that is the voting. So I think that would follow there. And I'll also point out in section C, it talks about other school support organizations as defined in 80-20. And in 80-20, a school support organization

[00:20:51] is an organization, it's a parent-teacher association, PTA, PTO, Booster Club, alumni group, foundation, or any other non-governmental organization or group of persons, and I think the key here is whose primary purpose is to support the school district.

[00:21:08] And so that is, that groups a lot of those organizations under that umbrella there that would be the primary support for a school, if that helps any with the definition. And that's referenced in item C on line 12. Okay.

[00:21:27] Okay, so for A, I can see where people are thinking that school board members might have a leg up as far as politics is concerned. And so I'm wondering if we could put, like, subject to Section B of this policy on the school board and its members, some language like that, so that people can refer to, okay, yeah, they can't put their political materials up or anything like that.

[00:21:58] They're not going to have a leg up. Sure, that's easy enough. So for any of the nonprofit community organizations like Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, they would have to put these materials in the activity described herein are not supported or endorsed by the Allen County School Board?

[00:22:33] That's correct. And you're reading from lines 26 to 29, correct? Yes, sir. Yes. And item four, which is line 31, actually it's really line 35, fundraising.

[00:22:57] I'm wondering, so for our, when we have our materials for political campaigns and things like that, there's sometimes QR codes on there for financial, like, donations and things like that.

[00:23:15] Is that something that would be not allowed under this policy because of this make-up financial solicitation? I'm sorry, that's correct. You could not have anything that would ask for or solicit funding for things that aren't specifically done under the fundraising policy.

[00:23:39] Item 36, political cause. It says that it's further described in Section B. Could you tell me what that is? Yes, ma'am. So if you go to line 73, students shall not be required to convey or deliver any material that advocates the election or defeat of any candidate, the passage or defeat of any referendum question, the passage or defeat of any matter pending before the school board.

[00:24:10] So those are your examples of a political cause. Sorry, what line are you referencing? Line 73 to 79. So I kind of have a problem with staff shall not be permitted and students shall not be required.

[00:24:33] Could you tell me a little bit more about why staff would not be permitted? So this is, again, under the section for distribution of political materials. So we're not allowing, in this language, we're not allowing staff to campaign, I guess is the right word, for candidates within the school.

[00:25:00] So again, this is back to posting of materials. So in other words, a teacher or a staff member of any type shouldn't be or cannot be posting vote for so-and-so for elected office or for any of these other referendum types of things.

[00:25:17] And so that should not be done by staff in the building and then go on to say that staff is also not allowed to have students do that for them. So thinking that there's collective bargaining and all the things that are going on with LEA at this particular moment in time, wouldn't that affect their ability to talk to other union members because it's in front of the board?

[00:25:48] So two staff, I'm trying to make sure I answer that correctly, two staff members can certainly at the lunch table talk about those types of things but an organization it would not be allowed to come in and set up a table and solicit those types of conversations if that makes sense so it doesn't allow disallow staff members from talking about it but just not posting materials and those types of things that that is so how would they be able to talk to their union members if they can't get

[00:26:24] in the schools well that's that's their that's the organization so that's back to what we talked but earlier having access to the building after school hours policy 6310 talks about the uses of outside organizations which those organizations anybody wanting to represent members of the the staff can request the use of the facility when it's not in use for school or educational conversations but not during the school day and I'll go to policy 6310

[00:27:01] And I'm in policy 6310 on the introductory paragraphs is LCPS facilities are available for limited, per-event, short-term use by other organizations and individuals as outlined in this policy in sections A through C of the regulation.

[00:27:22] And so organizations, and so then there's a listing, the organization must be structured, B is the organization must serve a commercial professional services or other government purposes. So as an outside organization, any organization can register with us and become a registered organization and then use our facilities for those types of events.

[00:27:48] So that can be done. It just can't be done all day. And again, this 6330 is just talking about posting materials. But I think your question is more about talking to folks, and that's covered in policy 6310.

[00:28:03] Kind of. But also, like, if they have a, like, join LEA or a sticker or something like that, wouldn't that be subject to this? Well, I don't think a sticker on a shirt is the same as posting or distributing information.

[00:28:28] So if you wanted to advocate for that, this policy does not cover that. And there may be other personnel-oriented policies that address that, but I'm not sure about that. And so one thing to keep in mind is what if there were 50 other organizations that want to represent our employees?

[00:28:51] Would they then be allowed to come in during the workday? And part of this thing was to, you know, the introductory paragraph is the school board seeks to minimize intrusions of the time of students, parents, and employees, you know, during the workday. And so that's part of this process is not having the instructional day disrupted for events that aren't for instruction.

[00:29:15] And that's part I left that out when I was reading policy 6310. It says when not being used for instructional purposes, extracurricular activities, non-curricular student clubs or athletic events, then these facilities are available. So those things can be done as long as they're not being used for instructional purposes.

[00:29:35] And that includes during the school day, obviously. Okay. And let's go back to line 38. Could you explain to me what substantial disruption, what that is? Is that defined anywhere? It is not, and that's a subjective thing, and that's one of the things that we leave to the discretion of the principal.

[00:29:57] And, you know, I guess as we talk through this, it's not possible for us to try to anticipate what every possible thing could happen, you know, what types of things could be. And getting back to posting or distribution of materials, if somebody wants to hand out a flyer for a particular event that may be a disruption, And I'm not coming up with a good thought, but that's why we leave that to the discretion of the principal to be able to look and identify something that may cause a disruption in their school.

[00:30:27] And it may be, you know, this week it does and next week it doesn't because particular events are happening.

[00:30:50] So from maybe it'd be helpful for me, just so I can kind of clarify my thinking as well, is if you can just talk through a little bit more around the organizations and entities section and the different categories.

[00:31:06] so A through F, and just kind of maybe explain one more time kind of the thinking around these organizations, and as I'm thinking about maybe employee-based groups, right, that exist now or in the future, you know, just thinking about the fact that for any of these accepted groups or approved groups, they'd still have to request approval. They wouldn't just be able to post, And so, you know, how that could play out in either case.

[00:31:43] So I'm just, you know, thinking about this. But if you can just clarify a little bit more the thinking around A through F. Sure, and you're exactly correct. So any of these organizations would still have to request anything to be posted or distributed that they're asking to do.

[00:32:01] And that would include members like yourself with the school board. And during our development of this, I know we did have a conversation specifically about the Loudoun Education Foundation, who raises, you know, scholarships and raises funding and does lots of things, backpack buddies, those types of things.

[00:32:19] So I think that's probably the whole basis of why they were listed specifically. And then we talk about the other organizations that we listed from Policy 8020. Loudoun County government agencies having an educational purpose. I think the voting thing was a good example of that.

[00:32:37] But there may be other organizations that, you know, I know we've had lots of discussions around school gardens and the garden manual and those types of things that's done by the, I can't remember which agency that is with the county government.

[00:32:53] We had lots of conversation with the joint committee with those folks. Schools currently recognize clubs, organizations, and school business partnerships. So if the chess club wanted to put something up on the wall, they could do that. And many of the other clubs that are there, they could request for maybe an activity or something they're having.

[00:33:11] They could request permission to put it up on the wall. And then organizations whose primary purpose is youth development. And I may need Mr. Stocks to correct me, but I think most of that language is straight out of the Virginia code. The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are listed in Virginia code.

[00:33:28] So we've added those there because we get lots of questions about that in the past. On item D, I think, you know, one of the examples that I could think of was the recycling education and outreach, right? Yeah, Mr. Trainers reminded me that the county has the Environmental Commission, Environmental Forums, and things that our students are involved with.

[00:33:53] So that would be examples of things from a county government organization. Can you give me some examples of, you know, I should have some creative examples as well, but some examples of school board and its members being approved? This is maybe town halls or is this because these can be considered maybe political events as well?

[00:34:14] You know, I'm just, again, trying to understand the parameters a little bit better. Yeah, we need to be careful with, to the point you made about political events, so we can't have those political causes. And I'm thinking, I'm glad you thought of it because I'm not sure I would have. The town hall would be a good example that you're going to hold a town hall next Thursday.

[00:34:33] That's something that would likely be able to be posted and your principal would likely approve that. we don't have any examples of that not being the case right and so i think that's probably a good example of things it's not necessarily a political um cause but it is an event that parents may be interested in coming in and participating in a town hall right you are their school board rep and exactly engaging correct so we have loudon county government agencies having an educational

[00:35:07] purpose what about state or national government agencies that have an educational purpose and They may very well fall under Section F with organizations whose primary purpose is youth development.

[00:35:28] So, you know, likely if they're going to have an educational component, the National Forest Association or what is that called? The Department of Parks and what is it?

[00:35:44] I can't remember the name of the Parks Department for the National Park Service. You know, they may have programs like that. They would fit into that category. Now that Chair Mansfield brought it up on line 73, I am also, I still feel a little bit unclear about the first line.

[00:36:22] Accordingly, staff shall not be permitted and students shall not be required. And, you know, I feel like the wording maybe could be tightened up because students shall also not be permitted to distribute election information on a candidate.

[00:36:42] So, again, I had the same kind of question mark in reading that line, just thinking about, how we can make that statement a little bit more clear. - I guess something that really concerns me is shall not be permitted to talk about anything about what's any matter pending before the school board.

[00:37:03] That's something that concerns me. The other thing is going back to the such material on 66 and 67, such material shall be removed from school property by the time the polls close on respective election day.

[00:37:18] Who's gonna be responsible for that? So the folks that are putting it up are responsible, so many times that's a campaign organization, but we do require them to be removed at the end of the day. And so on a day like today, those signs should come down.

[00:37:36] Typically, we haven't had an issue with that. I mean, if we did have that, I'm sure we would help get them down so they're not there for the next day. But generally speaking, we've had pretty good compliance over the years for that. So there's no accountability of any sort? I mean, we just ask you that you do it, right?

[00:37:53] Yeah, I mean, I think. And help you next time. Right, I'm not sure. Yeah, we haven't built in some accountability there because it hasn't been an issue, so we didn't see that as a need to address. I mean, we could certainly add some language. I'm going to have to do some thinking about this permitted thing.

[00:38:15] That really kind of is a red flag to me, especially when you're talking about things before the school board, board of supervisors. And I'm going to go back to section A, 1, and then A through F.

[00:38:45] I might be asking the same question in different ways, but is there is there anything in here that I'm trying to really understand the parameters so is there anything in here that be approved or potentially approved within these organ these types of organizations or entities that is not education focused or youth group focused and so

[00:39:14] I could see potentially a school board town hall would be engagement is there anything that I see the criteria being pretty clear, but is there any other example that you can think of where there could be an outlier or anomaly in this focus on educational activities that are directly tied to students?

[00:39:42] Because if we do then preclude everything else, I just want to make sure that if that is the formula that we're looking for, that those parameters are clear and then we've, you know, I don't know if my question is clear.

[00:40:01] it is and i appreciate the question i think um nothing is coming to my mind but i will say that one of the things that you and i talked about is i do believe we should start this process completely over even though we've already gone through the public comment period before that we should start that over and do another public comment and generally speaking that's where we may have folks that weigh in and say hey what about this particular thing and then that will help us think through that at this point in time i'm not thinking of anything i mean it may not be directly instructional in nature but it could be incomplete assistance for our students in the backpack buddy things comes to mind is where that would may not be an

[00:40:40] educational purpose even though it supports the student and so but you know even the definition of the school support organizations was back to things whose primary purpose is support the school district an individual school or a group of schools school club or any other so there are there are ways that I I think those things comply with here, so they wouldn't be precluded because they're allowed under that part of that, if that makes sense.

[00:41:11] Yeah, that helps. Thank you. Chair. Mr. Lewis, so you suggested going back from scratch. What process do you mean by that? So just that not to discount the work that the previous finance committee did, but just to start the process over again.

[00:41:33] And so what we have provided here is essentially the staff's recommendation, with the exception of that section where we put the blue language that the other committee, the previous committee said about adding back to school nights, because we felt like that you should at least be aware of those things.

[00:41:50] That doesn't mean you have to accept that. And only that the policy approval process includes coming here as an information item, going out to public comment and then coming back for action here and then going to the school board.

[00:42:07] So we would just do that same process. And then what we've also done in the item is provide that crosswalk between the old policy 8.65 and this to try to make sure that we haven't overlooked anything that we made changes to. Some of the language we just tried to clarify to make it make more sense because it has been confusing over the years.

[00:42:28] And that's part of the reason this policy has been in discussion for quite a while. So we do think that policy 8-65 needs to be updated. It does have some less clear language. And it does also allow anyone to hand out things within 40 feet any day of the year.

[00:42:48] So we felt that was important. I am inclined to that, you know, just to speak freely. I'm inclined to that. I think that's a good approach. And I think allowing this board, this committee to weigh in, give comments, and then for those, for all the discussion here to then go out again to public comment and just to kind of see if we get anything else back in terms of substance.

[00:43:17] I think that one of the unique things about this policy is that there are, you know, like I am right now, I'm thinking, what else am I not thinking about? And I think that going through another round of that feedback cycle would be helpful for this policy in particular.

[00:43:34] And if I'm correct, I do appreciate the fact that the old policy was more restrictive than this new policy. Is that fair to say? Or no? No, it was less restrictive. It's backwards, sorry. Okay, so now we're actually having to add parameters.

[00:43:52] And what has been the feedback, so to that, what has been the feedback from building administrators, from staff, from all of the various stakeholders around the issues with that previous policy and the drive to put some parameters around this?

[00:44:10] So I'll just clarify one thing. So the old policy 865 was less restrictive. The staff's original recommendation was more restrictive, and then the previous committee opened about those two days up for back-to-school nights and open houses so there is a fairly extensive list of all the feedback that we got in the item that and I don't know that it right off the top of my head I can characterize it in different themes but you can see there there were some confusions about what

[00:44:42] the policy applies to and whether it's access versus posting there were questions and not to make you go through all of that. I've seen it. I think if there were specific situations or circumstances in the past that, you know, may have prompted this, I doubt there were. I think this is, it's come up in the cycle. But that was my question. I don't want to make you go through

[00:45:13] all the comments. So, okay. So let's just say Jeff Morris, he would go every year to back to school nights or whatever and he'd say please vote for you know at the pts or whatever for you know funding the the bonds right so that we could build new schools for here it would he would if if he would do that now he wouldn't be able to do that is that correct if i'm understanding your question

[00:45:50] correctly he would be allowed to go there and say that but he would not be allowed to post a banner about it that makes sense so you know during the conversation he's an invited guest to the pta meeting or the back-to-school night he has some opening comments or any of you that would do that any elected official what this does not limit their access to the building or there are conversations in the building but it does limit what can be posted on the wall for doing again now we you know we're trying to disrupt this trying to not disrupt the student day and so a poster lingers in

[00:46:27] the hallway where that poster may be a minute for or the comments may be meant for the parents and not the students, and so we're trying really hard not to disrupt the student's day with that. So that's why the poster is not allowed, but the conversation is not prohibited. Okay, I do think that we need to tighten up that one part, the Loudoun School Board and its members, and may be subject to be of this policy.

[00:47:03] I do think that we need to look at the process for approval and put that in there of some sort, and I know you said regulations come after, but I think that we need to know that there is a process um and that there's a time limit um and i mean and it really just sticks on me this shall not be permitted for talking about passage or defeat of any member pending before the

[00:47:35] school board so that's my thoughts you don't be interested to see and i can come up with wording too i can work after work with wes or whatever afterwards to see if i can come up with some to float by after we get other public comment.

[00:48:05] I'm not ready to vote on this yet quite yet. - So it sounds like this would be something that we'd move to another information, to be an information item in the future. How would the process play out?

[00:48:25] - So what we would do is make fairly minor edits from this conversation. So under 1A, we would say school board member, school board and its members subject to section B. We would add that language. And then we'd also add a reference that the superintendent is also directed to develop regulations to formulate processes and procedures for that.

[00:48:52] And so then we would put that out to the public with this committee's initial comments. And that's, I don't think I've missed any. I mean, we had lots of questions. And then we would put that out, have those, and we would bring those back to this group.

[00:49:11] as information right yeah so we bring it back as another information item so that then we would incorporate the comments into the item not necessarily into the the policy sometimes we'll take them if the comments are very hard to follow sometimes we'll just say if you were to do that here's how it would look in the policy otherwise we would do a table like we did before and say here are the comments we have and here's the staff response to that and then that gives you a menu of sorts that you could pick from and add to that as that next conversation, and then we would bring it back for the third time for the committee to take action and move it to the full board.

[00:49:53] Any other questions or discussion? No action right now. No action. That's correct. Fifteen days, I think. The public comment period was how long?

[00:50:09] Fifteen days? How do we normally do it?

[00:50:29] That's what I thought I was explaining. So we would make the comments from tonight's conversation, put that out for public comment. that comes back, and then we'll bring that back to you with any other comments we got as a second information item, and then go bring it back for action if you're ready at that point.

[00:50:50] Is that what you were talking about? No? Hang on one second. Sure. So typically we would make those comments and bring them back to you based on tonight, but since they were pretty minor, that's why I was skipping that step, just that we would put those comments that I just suggested on board members subject to Section B and that the superintendent was directed to do regulation.

[00:51:27] If you'd rather have another crack at it before we take it back out to public comment, we're happy to do that. Any discussion? Thank you, Chair Strafi. Yeah, I think I'd like to have one more crack at it, particularly for that one area of the school board, permitted, not permitted, all the rest of that.

[00:51:48] I think it really, particularly for the school board area, because we want people to talk. But you said this is posting, not talking.

[00:52:06] And I'm having kind of a, so give me a little bit of time. Yeah. Well, let me have another crack at it for next week. I agree with that as well. Okay. We're not trying to rush it. The important thing is that you're comfortable with it. You have other members that you'll be talking about with this when we get there.

[00:52:23] So we want to make sure that as we go through this, everyone is comfortable and we have a plan that we can work with. So we're happy to do it that way. There's no problem. Thank you, Mr. Lewis, for your patience. Absolutely. Thank you. This is definitely one of the ones that once we bring it to the full board, it'd be nice to have gone through multiple iterations of conversations with folks and even the multiple rounds of public comment as well and just to be really ready.

[00:52:48] And what we'll do is we'll put our heads together and come up with maybe some examples that will help answer some of those questions for the different things. And so maybe that'll help of things that we've seen in the past and maybe things that we've just thought could happen and that may help with some context for some of that.

[00:53:06] And we'll do that also with this area about the staff shall not be permitted to try to give some context to that as well. And I'm wondering about substantial disruption because it is so subjective. Is there any way to make that more objective or examples or something like that?

[00:53:29] Yeah, and I wrote a note earlier about defining that. So at a minimum, we can maybe define that or maybe provide some examples of what would be and what would not be. Maybe that will help. Where would posting of perhaps a school walkout fall in?

[00:53:46] Let's say a student association or group would request approval for a walkout, and is there guidance to administrators around approval of that? Is that a significant disruption? Or, again, I'm just looking at all the possibilities, so I just wanted to outline that one that popped into my head.

[00:54:09] That's a really good example, And I know that there is guidance. I'm not sure if it's in the form of policy, but I know the schools have been given guidance, and we'll get that and provide it. But that's probably a really good example of a political cause that, you know, a walkout may be in the name of this cause that would or would not be.

[00:54:33] Of course, now, the walkout is not covered by this policy. This is just the posting again. But the walkouts are done under a different thing. but I think that's a really good example of what could be considered a political cause. Yeah, it's interesting because it could definitely be considered a political cause. It can also be advocacy, and so there could be a group of students that say, oh, this is not political, we're advocating for XYZ pets or whatever it is, or some topic around student voice within the school.

[00:55:04] And so being kind of intentional about thinking of the ability for students to express concern over anything happening in a club or in the school, and then the areas of that that could be problematic, obviously.

[00:55:22] Sure. And I think that's one of the reasons that the principal has that leeway to decide, which is a benefit that they have the ability to look at their school community and say whether or not that's a disruption. The disadvantage of that is if two principals make different decisions about the same question.

[00:55:39] And so nothing is in a nice, neat little package. So those are things that can all be, I think, part of this discussion as we move forward. Any other questions or discussion? Great.

[00:55:57] Thank you very much. Thank you. I really appreciate your support. Move on to new business. Is there any new business? Seeing none, we will go ahead and adjourn. March 5th meeting of the finance and operations committee and we will see everyone on I don't have my calendar in front of me on the 19th February I'm sorry March 19th it's already March and I didn't I didn't request a vote of adjournment this time I just adjourned so proud of myself thank you very much thanks all

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