Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, 4th Tuesday School Board Meeting, Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Date: Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 5h 26m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/938297034?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-19. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:08] 2024 Loudoun County School Board meeting call to order sorry we will start with item two at this time we'll start with disclosures and I'll start as a member of the Loudoun County School Board I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with items on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee.

[00:00:47] These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I'm included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years.

[00:01:07] Ms. Chandler. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with an item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:01:26] Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you. We will move on to Vice Chair Estreffi, and when Mrs. Griffiths and Ms. Donahue come, we will circle back to them.

[00:02:04] Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and/or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically as a school board member I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits however affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interest may also be affected of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school

[00:02:40] board for five years. Thank you. Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Chair Mansfield. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an lcps employee these benefits however affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected of which i

[00:03:18] am included i can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest this disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years thank you we will now move on to agenda item three approval of the consent agenda board members are there any changes to be made to the consent agenda? Seeing none, before we vote, we have five proclamations to read. And the first proclamation, the 2024 Mental Health Awareness

[00:03:51] Month, will be read by me. Whereas mental health is essential to everyone's overall health and well-being, and whereas mental health disorders affect one in five children during their school years, yet many children with mental disorders do not receive appropriate treatment. And whereas children's mental health is directly linked to their learning and development, and the school and classroom environment provide an optimal context to promote positive mental and behavioral health and to build skills that influence mental health outcomes, and whereas mental health

[00:04:28] awareness and prevention education serve to counter stigma, misunderstanding, fear, and barriers to accessing services and treatment, and whereas strong partnerships with community agencies families and private providers help to overcome these public health challenges and promote greater support for those affected and whereas the office of student mental health services were formed to advance mental health supports for students so that they are healthy ready to learn and may positively contribute within their school and community and whereas

[00:05:07] school counselors, social workers, psychologists, and student assistant specialists are specially trained to provide a continuum of mental and behavioral health services in schools that support and strengthen learning and development, and now therefore be it resolved that Loudoun County School Board hereby proclaims May 2024 as Mental Health Awareness Month in Loudoun County, Virginia.

[00:05:34] The second proclamation, 2024 Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, will now be read by Dr. Linda Deans. Asian American and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month, May 2024.

[00:05:57] Whereas Asian American and Pacific Islander American Heritage Commemoration originated in Congress in 1977 to celebrate the immigration of Asian and Pacific Islander people to the United States, And whereas Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans are sources of strength and innovation for our Loughton community and school division.

[00:06:23] And whereas Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans sought out safety and security for families and future generations to access the opportunities of the United States.

[00:06:45] And whereas during Asian American and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month, we recognize and celebrate the cultural contributions, historic contributions, contributions to industry and influence from Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans.

[00:07:00] And whereas, especially during Asian American and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month, we acknowledge and highlight the many achievements and profound contributions made by Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans to the economic, cultural, educational, and political development of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the entire United States.

[00:07:28] And whereas 26. 2% of enrolled LCPS students are Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans and 7. 35% of Loudoun County Public Schools workforce has self-identified as Asian American and Pacific Islander American.

[00:07:51] And whereas 99. 2% of Asian American and Pacific Islander American students graduated on time in 2023 compared to 97.

[00:08:10] 6% of all students in LCPS in 2023. And whereas, Loudoun County Public Schools has adopted a commitment to equity to ensure student growth and success for every child, to create student-responsive environments where all students can see representation of themselves and identity, to have a sense of belonging, to eliminate opportunity gaps, and to increase division-wide efforts in diverse recruitment,

[00:08:44] hiring, and retention. And whereas the school division continues to collaborate and partner with various community-based individuals and organizations to further its efforts of forming strong relationships in a culturally sensitive, responsive, and appropriate way. And whereas during Asian American and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month, we focus on the critical

[00:09:18] role of education in the history of Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans. Now, therefore, we, the Loudoun County School Board, do hereby recognize May 1st through May 31st, 2024 to be Asian American and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month in Loudoun County Public Schools. Be it further resolved that the Loudoun County School Board strongly encourage

[00:09:50] our staff and community to observe, recognize, and celebrate the culture, heritage, and contributions of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans to our country, the Commonwealth of Virginia, our beautifully diverse county, and our schools, not only during this month, but throughout the school year. In witness whereof, the Loudoun County School Board issues this proclamation to honor and recognize the contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans.

[00:10:29] The aforementioned impact is evidenced both nationally and globally. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Deans. Our third proclamation, the 2024 Jewish American Heritage Month, will also be read for Dr.

[00:10:45] Nadine's. Whereas, Jewish American Heritage Month has its origin in 1980 as Jewish heritage, and whereas it was resolved April 20th, 2006, designating May 2006 as Jewish American Heritage Month, and whereas Jewish Americans are sources of courage, strength, and resiliency for our Loughton community and school division, and whereas Jewish Americans sought out safety,

[00:11:24] freedom of religion, and security for families and future generations to access the opportunities of the United States. And whereas during Jewish American Heritage Month, we recognize and celebrate the cultural contributions, historic contributions, contributions to industry, and influence from Jewish Americans to help form the fabric of society. And whereas, especially during Jewish American Heritage Month, we acknowledge and highlight the many achievements and profound

[00:12:04] contributions made by Jewish Americans to the economic, cultural, educational, and political development of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States. Whereas, Loudoun County Public schools has adopted a commitment to equity to ensure success for every child to create student responsive environments where all students can see representation of themselves and identity

[00:12:36] to have a sense of belonging and freedom from prejudice and hate and whereas the school division continues to collaborate and partner with various community-based individuals and organizations to further its efforts of forming strong relationships in a culturally sensitive, responsive, and appropriate way. And whereas during Jewish American Heritage Month, we focus on the critical role of education in the history of Jewish Americans. Now, therefore,

[00:13:16] We, the Loughton County School Board, do hereby recognize May 1st through May 31st, 2024, to be Jewish American Heritage Month in Loughton County Public Schools. Be it further resolved that the Loughton County School Board strongly encourages our staff and community to observe, recognize, and celebrate the culture, heritage, and contributions of Jewish Americans to our country. The Commonwealth of Virginia, our beautifully diverse county, and our schools not

[00:13:55] only during Jewish American Heritage Month, but throughout the school year. In witness whereof, the Loughton County School Board issues this proclamation to honor and recognize the contributions of Jewish Americans, the aforementioned impact is evidenced both nationally and globally.

[00:14:19] Thank you, Dr. Deans. The fourth proclamation, Teacher Appreciation Week Recognition and Educator Appreciation Month will be read by Ms. April Chandler. Whereas, since 1984, the National PTA and the National Education Association have designated the first full week in May as a special time to honor and celebrate teachers, the for the important role they play in the growth and development of our children.

[00:14:49] Whereas Loudoun County Public Schools, with its 6,500 dedicated teachers, stands as a beacon of educational excellence, nurturing the minds of over 83,000 students across 100-plus schools and programs, and whereas the tradition of public school education across the United States and Virginia resonates deeply within the halls of LCPS, where teachers are the bedrock of our education system and, whereas, LCPS teachers impact students beyond the classroom, they instill values, ignite curiosity, foster resilience, shaping academic success, empathy, and embracing

[00:15:29] and celebrating the rich tapestry of cultural identities, backgrounds, and experiences found in our community, and, whereas, Teacher Appreciation Week is a heartfelt celebration of the tireless educators who shape students who are the future of our community and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools joyfully join school districts across the United States in celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week.

[00:15:53] Now, therefore, let it be resolved that May 6 through May 10, 2024 be designated as Teacher Appreciation Week and that it be further resolved that the Loudoun County School Board recognize the entire month of May as Educator Appreciation Month. Thank you. And now we'll have the fifth proclamation, 2024 National Arab American Heritage Month, will be read by Dr. Samara Rashid.

[00:16:20] Thank you. I'd like to thank Dr. Leticia Ellis-Williams for being extremely, extremely helpful before I begin. Whereas Loudoun County is the proud home of a diverse and thriving community, within that community is a large and flourishing Arab American population.

[00:16:37] And whereas there are more than 3.5 million Arab Americans in the United States, with Virginia being home to 81,617 Arab Americans. And whereas Arab American men and women have played an important role in shaping, advancing, and enriching the Commonwealth by making immense contributions to all areas of life, including government, business education, arts and sciences, medicine, law enforcement, technology, and the military.

[00:17:03] And whereas since immigrating to the United States, Arab Virginians have shared their rich culture and traditions with neighbors and friends while setting examples as model citizens and public servants. And whereas LCPS has a commitment to equity where all members of the community are afforded a safe, supportive, inclusive, affirming, and respectful environment.

[00:17:25] And whereas during Arab American Heritage Month, it is important to promote cultural awareness and understanding through educational initiatives, events, and celebrations within the LCPS community to eradicate harmful stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination.

[00:17:41] And whereas our school division is stronger when we reflect and respect the full diversity of our school community that enabled 97.6% of all students in LCPS to graduate in 2023. And whereas Arab American Heritage Month is an opportunity to celebrate the great pride and vibrancy of the over 80,000 Arab Americans in Virginia, whose abilities and contributions strengthen Virginia's economy, diverse culture, and communities.

[00:18:11] And whereas the school division continues to collaborate and partner with various community-based individuals and organizations to further its efforts of forming strong relationships in a responsive and culturally sensitive way with the Arab American community. and whereas the Commonwealth of Virginia is proud to celebrate the annual Arab American Heritage Month and commemorate the essential contributions, sacrifices, and accomplishments that Arab Americans have made to Virginia. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board proclaims April 2024 as Arab American Month in Loudoun County Public Schools. Be it further

[00:18:49] resolved that the Loudoun County School Board strongly encourage our staff and community to observe, recognize, and celebrate the culture, heritage, and contributions of Arab Americans to our country, the Commonwealth of Virginia, our beautifully diverse county, and our schools, not only during Arab American Heritage Month, but throughout the school year. In witness that whereof, the Loudoun County School Board issues this proclamation to honor and recognize the contributions of Arab Americans. The aforementioned impact is evidenced both nationally and globally.

[00:19:19] Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Rasheed. I'll now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. Yes, Ms. Chandler. I move that we approve the consent agenda. We have a motion by Ms. Chandler to approve the consent agenda.

[00:19:35] Is there a second? I second. We have a second by Dr. Deans. It's been properly moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. And at this time, we'll take an electronic vote. Clerk, could you please open the vote? Board members, please record your vote.

[00:19:53] Clerk, please close and display the vote. Oh, sorry. It's not working. There it is.

[00:20:16] The motion passes. Six with one abstention from Mrs. Griffiths and two absent, Mrs. Donahue and Ms. LaBelle. We will now move on to the work session, starting with Agenda Item 4.01 from the Department of Teaching and Learning, Literacy and Math Initiatives and Resources, presented by Mr. Neal Slevin.

[00:20:40] And while y'all are getting ready, because I know there's a lot of y'all coming up, we'll have Mrs. Griffiths do her disclosures. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:21:06] Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in the excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, which I am included.

[00:21:24] I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public's interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Griffiths. - Okay, Mr. Slevin, when you're ready.

[00:21:43] - We are ready. Chair Mansfield, thank you so much for this opportunity for the team to update the full school board on the work happening around literacy and mathematics in Loudoun County Public Schools. In support of Dr. Spence's Forward Together Entry Plan, teams from the Department of Teaching and Learning and the Department of Student Services assess current division literacy and math initiatives to determine alignment with the most appropriate research-based methodology for literacy and math instruction, and intervention, including the Virginia Literacy Act. Mr. Jeff Roundsley, our Director of Teaching and Learning K-12, will kick us off. Good evening, Chair Mansfield and members

[00:22:21] of the board. I'm Jeff Roundsley, Director of Teaching and Learning. We're joined by a great group of educators here who are going to walk through some of our division initiatives around literacy and mathematics. I'm going to take a moment to just introduce them. First, we have Dr. Michelle Picard, our Supervisor of Secondary English and Reading. Ms. Catherine Neal, our supervisor of elementary reading and writing, Ms. Nicole Algoni, who is our supervisor of mathematics, K-12. I'm also going to introduce my friend and colleague, Ms. Sharice Rosario, who's going to, the director of English Learners, who's going to introduce members of her team who

[00:22:54] are here tonight. Good afternoon. I am joined by our EL elementary supervisor, Heather Crawford, who's on the other side there, and our secondary EL supervisor, Jaylon Tabuloglu. And this really was a work across many different offices in Loudoun County Public Schools.

[00:23:15] So I also would like to introduce Dr. Stephanie LaPaula, our supervisor of multi-tiered systems of support. And I think I saw Dr. Paige Carter, our director of special education, here as well to share some of the work that we are all doing together to support literacy and mathematics here in LCPS. So on the next slide, Mr. Slevin pointed out at the beginning that this was a result of part of Dr. Spence's entry plan, where this team was charged with assessing current division initiatives around literacy and mathematics, and looking at both areas where we believe there are a lot of strengths here in our division and areas where we believe there are opportunities for us to continue to grow and develop in our work. I want to point out that this is going to be a very

[00:23:55] high-level overview of those efforts, and included in Board Docs tonight are links to some handouts that are a more detailed view of the work that happened here as we compile this assessment, And also a link to the most recent VDOE update on the Virginia Literacy Act, which has some implications that we'll talk about here tonight around professional learning for our principals and for our teachers.

[00:24:18] These are just some of our outcomes on the next slide, as I mentioned, which is that we will be providing a high-level overview and also looking at some areas of opportunity and also, hopefully, having opportunities for questions and feedback to dialogue with you around our future opportunities.

[00:24:36] So I want to start with just a broad overview of what we're going to talk about on the next slide, which is some of the big areas that we saw. So in terms of the areas of strength that we saw across our division are really a rich and robust array of resources that we provide to our teachers, a tremendous amount of professional learning that's aligned to the Virginia Literacy Act and best practices across our content areas, and also a host of opportunities for teachers to assess their students, to measure their progress and growth using a variety of different measures. And on the other side for our areas of opportunity that we'll be talking about here tonight is the consistency of that

[00:25:14] implementation with all those resources. Do we have a clear vision for how we're using all those resources for best practices and how are we supporting our teachers and our school leaders in streamlining the resources that we have available to them and making sure that it's being put to the best use in the support of student learning and growth. So I'm going to start with the first area of strength that we identified here through our assessment efforts, which was our alignment of curriculum and resources.

[00:25:41] And there really was a clear view that the resources, that there's a lot of ongoing work in LCPS to make sure that our resources are aligned to the requirements of the Virginia Literacy Act and that we are supporting our teachers and engaging in research-based best practices. And so I'm going to turn it over to Catherine Neal to share a little bit about how we are documenting And supporting that through the required division literacy plan from the VLA.

[00:26:06] Hello. So for the division literacy plan, it is a requirement under the VLA. For the next school year, it is for K-5. But in following school years, it will be a K-8 division literacy plan.

[00:26:24] Really, the purpose is to communicate with all stakeholders the efforts that are being put into literacy and how the implementation plan is moving forward. So you'll see sections on there about parent engagement. You'll see sections on there about professional learning and our high-quality instructional materials and also our supplemental and intervention materials.

[00:26:47] We will present this plan in more detail at next week's curriculum and instruction meeting, and we can go through the different sections and look at what's been put in there. But that's just a high overview of the division literacy plan. I also want to highlight as part of this is the ongoing efforts around aligning our resources to the Virginia Literacy Act.

[00:27:09] So I'm sure there's a lot of discussion around the implementation of HMH into reading at the elementary school level. We're also engaging in a review of our resources at the six through eight level as well. And also with the new standards that have come out for both English and math, lots of work happening inside our division to make sure that the resources and curriculum that we have is aligned to those new curriculum standards that we will be implementing in the 24-25 school year.

[00:27:37] And the next area of strength is the availability of professional learning and resources. And so it was clear that our teachers, our administrators, our specialists have a lot of professional learning around culturally responsive, research-based best practices, access to digital content, culturally responsive text, classroom library allocations that are widely utilized to make sure our students have lots of opportunities to read high quality materials and so two examples of that high quality professional development that our teachers are receiving is QTEL which our EL team will share a little bit about and and also

[00:28:15] the support that's been provided to our reading specialists through letters and aspire which Dr. Picard will speak about. So I'll speak a little bit about QTEL. So Quality Teaching for ELLs is a four-day in-person cohort that our office provides in partnership with Wesson. It provides both practical strategies that teachers can implement in their instruction, as well as an in-depth look at sociocultural and linguistic theory and research regarding best instruction for multilingual learners. QTEL heavily supports the language comprehension strand of Scarborough's reading rope, while also challenging students to increase their use of expressive language.

[00:28:50] At the elementary level, co-teaching teams of classroom and EL teachers attend a Building the Base Institute. However, this looks a little bit different at secondary, so I'll let Jalon speak to that now. At the secondary level, QTEL cohorts are offered for each of four core content areas. So far the division of EL has offered eight ELA cohorts and one math cohort at the secondary level. About 280 secondary teachers have completed the cohorts and the ELA cohort introduces participants to the current shifts in language arts and literacy classrooms. The cohort focuses on developing comprehension skills for secondary ELs through

[00:29:27] scaffolding. The math cohort focuses on ways to develop the language of math and and to provide access to rigorous math content both the secondary english language arts and math cohorts emphasize the importance of developing expressive language skills and giving english learners the opportunity to access grade level curriculum with appropriate instructional scaffolds so both the math and english language arts offices have been um able to collaborate with the qtel which has been phenomenal and it's been an inspiration in the classroom i wanted to also

[00:30:02] share what's been done specifically to meet the VLA and to deepen our instruction when it comes to teaching reading. We were very proactive when the VLA was published. And so over the last several years, the elementary program has been offering letters, which is essentially a graduate level class. It's 45 hours, letters one, and then followed by letters two. And at the secondary level we were not required of course we're still just about to be required to go into a vast amount of professional learning but we're very very proactive so for the last two years we have done

[00:30:38] book studies on the science of reading as well as an aspire class which is produced by lexia the the good news with the reading specialists is we are really able to bring them out for out of the classroom three to four times a year for a secondary and a little bit more at the elementary level, so we've been able to dedicate time and to really dig into the professional learning around how kids learn to read. Thank you. We also wanted to highlight a few of the key professionals who are in our school supporting best practices, and so Dr. Carter will talk about the role of the specialized facilitator, and Ms. Algoni will speak about our math resource teachers.

[00:31:18] Good evening. I'm filling in for Margaret Osbury, who serves on our team this evening, but specialized instructional facilitators that we call CIFs, focused on specially designed instruction both in the adapted and general curriculum. There are 23 CIFs and their main role is to coach and support special education teachers in the implementation of progress monitoring of individualized goals from their IEPs as well as their response to that instruction

[00:31:50] and that's with students with disabilities across the division. Hello so our math resource teachers They, this is a new role for Loudoun last year.

[00:32:05] They were, well, this year is our first year implementing them. They support our schools spending 50% of their time helping teachers with planning, unpacking standards in CLTs with data, co-teaching with teachers in the classroom. And then they spend the other 50% of their time providing intervention to students that are in need of Tier 2 and Tier 3 support.

[00:32:27] They're utilizing in the elementary and middle schools the Bridges intervention kits. and then in our high schools we are utilizing the hands-on equations and hands-on standards for intervention and so we have five of those math resource teachers and we had seven instructional facilitators for math that we are repurposing to math resource teachers so next year we'll have 12 math resource teachers thank you and then our last area of strength that we identified as part of this assessment was the multiple sources for the assessment of learning so vowels map i ready

[00:33:03] standards of learning there are common assessments loaded in performance matters and other available screeners really give our teachers and school leaders a deep look at the progress of our students and to be able to make informed data decisions to support student learning both at core and intervention and Dr. LaPaula's work has been at the heart of that so I'm going to give her a chance to talk a little bit about the decision trees available for teachers. The decision trees have been put in place for many years and this is our process across all of our schools for making database decisions which takes our practices from universal screening followed

[00:33:43] by any diagnostic assessment and then identifying any students that may be in need of tiered interventions and from there then progress monitoring and informing families of updates to how the intervention is progressing as we mentioned and the board is aware this was the first year that we were systemically documenting intervention plans across the county in one system and so we have been able to utilize the mtss module to help us identify the students who have in need of interventions and not only help to support them there but also again support back

[00:34:18] in core instruction as well so at a high level those are three areas of strength that we saw in this assessment. In the next section, we're going to talk a little bit about areas that we identified for some future opportunities for growth across the division. And the first one is the consistency of implementation of the curriculum and resources. So while we have these really rich, robust resources afforded to teachers, there have been some concerns around the implementation around those in a consistent basis across LCPS. So a guiding question that we have internally as we think about these questions is how might we close gaps that have been observed during learning walks

[00:34:54] between the written and the taught curriculum and there are some next steps for consideration there but I'm going to highlight one specifically which is the development of our instructional framework. This has been a project that's been ongoing throughout this year that involves members of the Department of Teaching and Learning, all of the people that you see up here today, as well as representatives from our schools, teachers, school leaders across all different content areas and the idea there is to map out a clear vision for what effective teaching and learning looks like in LCPS, coupled with a curriculum audit, which is in process, also part of Dr. Spence's entry plan, to have some people look at our curriculum and determine where there

[00:35:32] are areas where we can further align the work and how we can support teachers in implementing that curriculum in a regular and consistent basis. So how we align those areas is one point that we continue to refer back to as we improve our practices. The second one is how we simplify and streamline the quantity of resources available to teachers.

[00:35:56] So a question we've been wrestling with is how might we close gaps, I'm sorry, on the next slide. The next slide is how might we focus our resources and professional learning to implement and sustain our instructional vision and support teachers. So while, again, there are a number of next steps for consideration, one that I want to highlight is the thoughtful and intentional onboarding of new staff.

[00:36:16] So as we developed this presentation, we thought a lot about the work that had been done around letters and aspire that was pointed out earlier but how we continue to keep that momentum going for our new teachers who join we've also recently if you refer to the vla update that we've seen is that this is a bigger issue than just our new teachers but that there is required professional learning through the vla that we are continuing to grapple with about how we might implement that in the 24 25 school year so just to give you a little bit of information about that the the information that was released on april 11th had a couple of requirements one is an in-person training in June for all principals K through eight in across Virginia. Those are kind of regional based but we

[00:36:56] at this point do not have a date for when that might be taking place for northern Virginia. And then our teachers throughout the 24-25 school year also have some additional requirements. So as an example our K through three reading specialists have about nine modules that they need to complete each lasting three to six hours. So that's somewhere between 27 and 54 hours of professional learning. At the K-5 level, again, it's nine modules, each lasting two to three hours. At the 6-8, for English language arts teachers, it's nine modules, two to three hours each. And for all other

[00:37:31] contents in math, science, and social studies, at the 6-8 level, it's nine modules at one to two hours each. So this is a heavy lift, one that we've been working with our school leaders and department of school leadership to determine how we might be able to implement that and that's an ongoing conversation that we're having but one that we are trying to wrestle with and figure out how we can support teachers in in school leaders in implementing and fulfilling that requirement and then on the final slide of an area of opportunity is the consistency of review analysis and action processes related to assessment data so how might we continue our collaborative efforts

[00:38:09] to support robust data analysis protocols in schools and implement interventions at a high level. And this really points to the fact that how do we as a school division have insight into what is happening in our schools and making sure that we are providing appropriate and helpful supports.

[00:38:25] And I'm gonna let Ms. Rosario speak a little bit to that. Thank you. Yes, we members of the Department of Teaching and Learning, Division of English Learners, and Special Education are enhancing are collaborative efforts to review and analyze data to make decisions that are aligned to support school improvement plans.

[00:38:47] We're working closely with research and school improvement office to support schools on data-driven decisions that really support those resources that are aligned to the goals that are made at the school level with their plans. Thank you. And then our final slide is just some important milestones and things that we are working on for the 24-25 school year.

[00:39:09] Really, there's four big buckets in these areas that I wanted to draw your attention to. And the first one is our continued implementation of the Virginia Literacy Act. We are awaiting some significant information around approved supplemental and intervention resources. And we'll also be implementing student reading plans for the first time next year.

[00:39:26] And again, there are some ongoing questions around what that might look like and how that might happen in our schools. Ongoing resource adoptions. So we have HMH into reading, but also next year we'll be starting the rollout of that and the professional learning associated with that to support the implementation.

[00:39:43] Also, as I mentioned earlier, resource adoption for grades six through eight in English and resource adoption for students in math grades K through 12. New standards in both English and math that we will be implementing next year in the 24-25 school year.

[00:39:59] So a lot of curriculum development work, engaging with our teachers and other stakeholders to make sure we have good resources available to our teachers that align to those standards. And finally, professional learning. So I already referenced some of that professional learning associated with the VLA, but also the ongoing work that started with QTEL, which has been really beneficial to many of our students and teachers, ongoing letters training, which has also a tie back to that required professional learning as that can, in some cases, take the place of those modules that I was talking about earlier, and building some awareness around that instructional framework and continuing to build that collective vision for what effective teaching and learning looks like in LCPS.

[00:40:36] So next year is a learning year where we're working to unpack that and make sure that our community, our teachers, our school leaders are aware of how we've defined really high quality teaching and learning in LCPS and also building out the resources that will be used to support the implementation of the instructional framework.

[00:40:55] So that's an overview of literacy and math at this point, and we welcome any questions or feedback you might have. Thank you so much. I have some thoughts and some questions. So first of all, thank you for this presentation. And it isn't a secret that as a parent with decoding dyslexia, I work to help put a lot of those items into place through legislation. But something that people may not know is that since 2016, decoding dyslexia has also been working to try and change teacher professional development so that school districts and teachers would not be put into this position

[00:41:33] of retraining teachers in the science of reading and we started with this legislation for all teachers to complete a module in 2016 and then in 2020 decoding dyslexia helped pass legislation that mandated institutes of higher learning to get together to discuss how they should teach pre-service teachers how to teach reading and unfortunately universities and teacher prep programs here in virginia have continued to be resistant during this last legislative session LCPS advocated for a two-year baseline audit to determine whether teacher prep programs are in

[00:42:09] compliance with the VLA. And unfortunately, many universities and teacher prep programs, including GMU, came out and killed the bill. So here we are with 27 plus hours of mandated teacher training for all teachers and literacy on top of all the other training our teachers are required to do. And I know that we need to be really creative to help support our teachers. And I hope that others, our families, and the school board will be willing to give the district and teachers the space to do that work. We need effective tier one instruction, but more importantly,

[00:42:45] our teachers must know how to deliver evidence-based literacy instruction grounded in the science-based reading research. So then it really wouldn't matter what curriculum we buy because they all have flaws. Although I'll probably always insist we buy evidence-based literacy curriculum. So now I will ask Mr. Slevin, what are we going to do about that amount of training from VDOE in addition to all of the training we will have, we will be providing to come into compliance with VLA? And what are some of the ways that we can lessen that load of training for

[00:43:20] teachers? We want to give them the space. So thank you for that question. First, I would just start by expressing appreciation for our teachers. We have been working with our teachers for a number of years in anticipation of and in response to the Virginia Literacy Act and across the board there's been a positive disposition they want this learning they want to implement strategies that make an impact in the classroom so I just want to start with the we have a teacher force that's ready to learn and they want to be responsive to the challenges that are in their classroom every day and I definitely appreciate that as a leader in the school system we are this news is somewhat

[00:44:00] fresh off the press, we received this information last week. And so we are trying to kind of assess the plan that we're being given by the Virginia Department of Education against our own internal needs when it comes to training. And I'll ask Catherine and Jeff to talk a little bit about some of the early work that's happening there. But first, I think you talked about the need to prioritize and focus support. We do need to work as a system to keep this the main thing.

[00:44:30] There are many things that are coming at our teachers. So as we're planning professional development days and we're thinking about what we're scheduling with teachers, particularly in our elementary school, but with some of the news about secondary, we may need to revisit some of those conversations. But are we making sure that teachers have the space to spend on literacy and the required trainings?

[00:44:49] Is that going to be our primary focus? So when we're putting together plans for PD days, that is definitely going to be there. We're also working with the state to look at what can we get credit for in terms of what we've already done and so loud and county public schools thanks to the foresight of the previous board um we really got ahead of some of the training through letters and we had a good response from our teachers for letters one and even letters two and um i'll we we are hopeful that that training is going to count um to take the place of some of this required training and that'll help us take some of the burden off the system and also our

[00:45:26] teachers in terms of what the training is going to be it looks like also there's some og training yes from mc that might also yes other trainings as well that could possibly get us um because we need because we're not only talking that's a good point we're not only talking about general education teachers we're talking about el teachers and special education teachers and then finally i do think we need to think about creative ways to recognize what's happening with teachers and so while we don't have a proposal to bring to the board tonight we do plan to continue to socialize this issue through the C&I committee through the full board in terms of scheduling like are there

[00:46:02] options that we have for the schedule for this amount of training are there options for release time for teachers can we look at some possibilities there are there creative ways that we could recognize what is being put on our teachers in response to the real need no one's questioning the need for the training and the shifts in practice but it's just recognizing kind of where our teachers are. So that was a lot. And I don't know if Jeff or Catherine, you wanted to give any

[00:46:27] updates on where we're at with communication with training plans. All right. So in regards to training, we are continuing to offer Letters Volume 1 and also Letters Volume 2. And I know that the state is considering Letters Volume 1 as being one of the approved alternative trainings to meet that teacher professional learning.

[00:46:59] We should receive more information about that, hopefully on Thursday at the state board meeting. So with that, we could say that as of last year, now this number includes not only elementary classroom teachers, but also any L teachers, SPED teachers that took letters.

[00:47:18] But we had 692 teachers who completed letters volume one last year. And then for this year, we have 286 teachers going through letters. So because of our proactive planning and the interest from teachers seeing the need and wanting that professional learning, because it was completely optional for teachers, hopefully that will be honored and that we can honor some of that learning that they've done up until this point, which will also help us with some of the additional training we have next year.

[00:47:50] because like Mr. Slevin said, we also are implementing a new core resource, and we also have revised standards. So that also takes additional professional learning and support for teachers, not just the, you know, the VLA training as well. Dr. Carter, do you know how many we've trained in MZ as well that would possibly count? As of the end of last year, it's 747, and we have, that doesn't take into account any turnover we had this year, and we've trained close to 300 this year so we're nearing a thousand total but I don't have the exact number

[00:48:27] of teachers who are with us right now but it is it is well over 700 that are still with us so we have a good leg up on that but um turnover and retention of course impact that so we'll be running cohorts continuously thank you okay I'll keep mine for later any more any questions I'm going to go with Ms. Cherna first Thank you for this I just want to point out I really think it's rather special that you all are sitting here in front of us together it takes a village we've learned that over time

[00:49:06] it's a big district and there's a lot of hands in the pot sometimes but I can personally attest having worked with many of you that this is a collaborative effort and that you are invested in making sure that those connections are happening for our kids and we have been proactive and we're ready to launch I think. I was disappointed on April 11th to learn about the PD not in the sense that it's not great and we don't need it in the literacy sense but the sense that I'm thinking about our teachers, I'm thinking about morale, I'm thinking about minutes in the day and all the things that they have to juggle as I know we all are tackling

[00:49:42] the issue of recruitment and retention and I do think that this plays a big role. It's hard to prioritize when you have so much coming from so many angles so i echo what chair mansfield said if we can find a space teachers we see you we want to support you we get it it's a lot um and so we want to be i i can speak for myself i i want to make sure that we do support our teachers and find that space. I think, you know, as I'm thinking about it, one question I had was, does EL and SPED

[00:50:19] have special education teachers also have to do these literacy modules, or is it just reading specialists and gen ed teachers? It's everybody. I'm seeing nodding. Everybody. So I like that in the sense that we're all going to be on a same playing field. I think that's been missing for a while, and I know a lot of our general education teachers are starting to really get into QTEL and some of the EL co-teaching strategies. We talked about it at CNI about, you know, just the menu of EL professional development options that gen ed teachers really want to take because our

[00:50:56] populations are evolving moment by moment, and so I'm grateful that that is a piece of the puzzle, and hopefully maybe as part of the conversation, in a collaborative way, we can build from that level playing field and kind of think about strategically what that's going to be. You have a commitment from me, board, that I won't let this drop. We're definitely going to be tackling this as a committee, but I just wanted to, you know, I'll dig into my division literacy questions at CNI on May 2nd, but I really just wanted to take a moment to let teachers know, let staff know that we really thank them for their work, that they have been on board with this transition. Change can

[00:51:36] be hard and daunting, but we're here. We're hearing you, and we know this is coming, and I know we're all going to work collaboratively to make it as easy as possible. Thank you. Yes, Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you give examples of culturally responsive

[00:51:58] research based on best practices? Can anyone hear? Are you referring to slide two, digital and culturally responsive text i am thank you so that that speaks at the most basic level to having resources available to our classrooms that students can see themselves in there's many components to culturally responsive instruction but in particular with text we have tried over

[00:52:35] the years to diversify our text make sure there are stories from different cultures different backgrounds we know that our students bring in different perspectives different assets to our classrooms that we want to make sure those are recognized in our instruction and in this particular case in the resources that they have books on their shelves textbooks we're thinking about what students are bringing into the classroom I had one more question and what does that mean in regards to math any any potential instructional resource that we introduce into a classroom could

[00:53:14] have potential bias and so thinking about assumptions we may make about experiences making sure that we're looking at it through that lens making sure our teachers understand how to how to present material how to present examples how to present scenarios real world scenarios that's something that we emphasize instructionally and so making sure that our teachers are equipped with with that culturally responsive lens i don't know i don't want to put nicole on the spot if you want to speak to any specific examples that you've worked through over

[00:53:48] the years? So there's many performance tasks that teachers are implementing in classrooms. And so that often gives teachers ideas to do different tasks, real world scenario problems. And so when they have this training that's culturally responsive, they start to think about how do I make sure that I'm giving access to all the students in my classroom? And how can I make sure that my students are seen in those performance tasks? So that would be an example of culturally responsive in the math classroom um i'm just having a hard time with bias and math but thank you for your

[00:54:24] response board members are there any other questions i'll hold my other questions and i'll just fill them in later probably maybe during the curriculum instruction i might send them to you okay that's i just want to make sure we do i appreciate ms sure enough mentioning we do plan on having another update k8 in cni in may and so that presentation will be available to the full board we do intend to socialize as we have been with the virginia literacy act communication is a big piece of this working with principals um so we appreciate the board's attention on this

[00:55:03] we know it's a priority and we we appreciate any support in socializing this work thank you so much and thank you to you all to all of you and all of your hard work thanks um up next we'll move on to agenda ida 4.02 from the department of support services school board policy 6210 student

[00:55:24] transportation annual review of walk zones presented by mr kevin lewis good evening everyone

[00:56:01] chair mansfield members of the board dr spence tonight we are here to present the annual review of our walk zones from the transportation division i'll share with you i'm joined tonight by tisha austin who is our assistant director of transportation and i'll share that mr davies was unable to join us as director of transportation as he is a captain in the united states navy reserve and he's called up for duty this week and so he's probably watching now but he was unable to to join us this evening so i did want to just go over part of our process this is something that we do every year and we inform the board but we also bring this present same presentation

[00:56:41] to the finance and operations committee and we did that on april 2nd so tonight's presentation we have a couple things that were added as questions at that meeting that we've shared at the end of the presentation so this is the same presentation we saw at the finance committee but with those extra couple things um i'll start by just talking a little bit about our timeline and process so it's not something that happens very quickly it's a very lengthy process and our folks under tish's leadership will go out and start walking all the reviews we walk walk and review every walk zone to look for things that have changed so um you'll see later in in the uh the

[00:57:18] process um the certain conditions that we do but i wanted to share with this particular slide the process we go through the finance committee the school board we distribute letters to the parents also in the principals and then there will be a process for you to possibly participate in if we get appeals to that these this is one of the policies that specifically references appeals would go to the board so if we get some of those we will review respond and then if the issue continues then we will bring it to the board for for their consideration i will say the communication

[00:57:53] plan is pretty extensive as well. We send out notifications to any household that's affected by change to the walk zone. In other words, you're eligible for transportation this year, you're not eligible next year based on this review. You get notices a week and a half ahead of the finance committee, one week ahead of the finance committee, two days ahead of the finance committee, and then we repeat that same process before tonight's meeting so all those folks know that it's being discussed both at the committee level and at the school board level. And then as required by policy 6210, all notices must go out to all parents of a change in their eligibility prior to June 1. And that was done years ago when we wrote the policy to make sure that we get

[00:58:32] notice before folks go on vacation, before school is out, so that they have ample time to plan for their next year's transportation process. The next three sides I'm just going to go through pretty quickly. They are just a reiteration of some of the tenets of the policy and essentially it talks about the fact that walk zone for elementary school kids is one mile for middle and high school it's 1.25 miles we do have a provision if you can imagine the walks the 1.0 miles ends about halfway down the street with a cul-de-sac that the policy allows us to go

[00:59:07] to the end of that cul-de-sac as long as it doesn't exceed 0.1 miles for elementary and 0.2 for middle school so there is some flexibility nothing that's shown tonight has taken into account that. So I'm just going to try to go through those pretty quickly. I know we're a little short on time. Each year we do this, we always get questions about crossing guards. Just a quick reminder, crossing guards are employees of the Loudoun County Sheriff's Department. They are not LCPS employees and so they are limited like everyone else by availability of crossing guards. That's not a job that everybody wants to do. I would say probably a very large percentage

[00:59:47] of folks that volunteer to do that realize it's not an easy job and then don't go through the training but we do have a number we have 34 crossing guards at 29 schools for elementaries and we have 16 crossing guards at seven schools and seven of the middle schools and I was looking we constantly have a number of posts six positions are unfilled start right there in the middle so that is something that's always a challenge is recruiting for those so we hesitate to add crossing guards if they are having trouble filling those spots and what happens is

[01:00:22] the sheriff's department has been a fabulous partner whenever they commit to a crossing guard position they send a deputy to cover that until they get the spot filled so just know that every time they have an unfilled position they're filling that with the deputy and taking them out of their normal jobs but they are a true partner in that and have committed and done a great job with that over the years so this slide is just a summary of the changes we're making for this year and you'll see in the center column on the left column you see the name of the school in the center column you see the reason for the change and when it says annual review that just means that we have gone through and looked at that and sometimes we find mistakes that we just

[01:01:01] overlook something that we should have included in this case you'll see one slide tonight where we've included something that shouldn't have been there and we're removing it based on the distance so those are looked at each each year there may also be changes in let's say if there was a heavy construction project between a residential neighborhood and a school we may not walk students through there until that construction project is done and then we deem it safe. So those are things that are changed for the annual review and then other things are for new construction where we see where there's new houses being built or possibly even new infrastructure sidewalks and

[01:01:34] those types of things. So those are a quick synopsis of where we are making changes and you'll see out of our 82,000 students there are 265 students affected by what we're presenting tonight. And I don't think it's necessary unless you want to to really dig deep into each of these maps but this is a similar map to what we're talking about you can see in this this is a Buffalo Trail the farthest distance you can see is 0.89 miles away and we've done this and recognize that these houses should have been included in that neighborhood or in the walk zone all along and there are

[01:02:14] seven residential students in the upper right-hand corner that are affected so there'll be seven more students walking to Buffalo Trail this year than what was in last year. The next one, and you'll see this slide essentially twice, adjacent to in the center green you see there with the little round circles, that's the top view of Catoctin Elementary School.

[01:02:34] If you weren't aware of the round circles, the round pods, classroom pods at Catoctin. To the left you see in the other green box is Loudon County High School. And as you're probably aware, there's a pretty significant neighborhood being constructed adjacent to both of them. And so we are now, because these houses are now uh occupied we are including that into the walk zone for both loudon county high school and catoctin elementary so this slide will show up again under loudon county the next one is elaine thompson where you can see where these houses are being next be built next door i will just give one caveat as as we move through this we are in constant communication with

[01:03:14] our neighborhoods and hoas and different things and right now we have planned this expansion of the walk zone based on the fact that there's a crosswalk being installed we learned today there's a little timing issue with that and maybe some so we have to follow the developer so it is possible that by fall we will still provide bus service to this neighborhood if we don't get that crosswalk installed in time so just just be aware that if if that doesn't make take place then we'll be sure to create a safe travel for those students and provide them a bus farmhouse station you'll just

[01:03:51] see we've added an annual review that we found some homes that were within that 1.25 mile zone and just were not included before so we're noticed that this year and included in those hillsborough as you've been up in that area recently they've done a lot of work on route nine and so provided some extra sidewalks in there so we've been able to open up this area that's in yellow independence high school it's also a new construction area that you'll see up in in the yellow and that's within the walk distance and so we've included that and this is Loudoun County High School the

[01:04:29] same slide as what you saw a few minutes ago for Catoctin. Madison's Trust I mentioned a few minutes ago we sometimes we see things that we included that should not have been and we go back and take those out so what you see in the upper left hand corner is the purple area that was previously a part of the walk zone that will now be getting bus service and so those those folks will be notified as that as well and provide service in there for them so that walk zone is being reduced. Moorfield Station is probably the one with the most students. There's 222 students

[01:05:05] in that area you see there in yellow, and that's a pretty significant multifamily development. Between there and our school, there is a road that we actually constructed when we built the school, and it leads straight to that neighborhood. And so we have been working with their developer, and they're going to provide a crosswalk there, so that's a safe crossing. And so we'll open up that crosswalk and be able to get those students a clear passage to the school.

[01:05:35] Pinebrook Elementary, those homes have just been built, and there's been a sidewalk right where you see that big arrow pointed. There's been a sidewalk that connects those two and allows those students to walk over to Pinebrook. With Sully Elementary, there's a couple areas in the lower left and upper right, just for whatever reason, two or three lots that were not included before, so we're just including those, and those are within the distance.

[01:05:59] And then we'll turn to our April 2nd conversation with the Finance and Operations Committee, where we had a couple of questions, and so we just brought some maps forward for those. And you'll see a specific question about Belmont Station Elementary School. Mr. Griffith, I think you brought that up.

[01:06:16] One of the things in our standards for establishing what a safe route is for each level of school, but in this case for elementary schools, we don't have elementary school students crossing 35-mile-in-one zone. So we limit that to 25. So that's the reason that has not been included in the walk zone.

[01:06:33] And so that's pretty standard and typical for our walk zones across the county. And then two other schools were mentioned, Cardinal Ridge and Jalen Michael Lunsford, both of which cross Braddock Road. And that's a terribly busy road. And it's constantly under construction.

[01:06:49] It's going to be a four-lane divided highway. And so we will continue to provide bus service across there. It's just not safe to have anyone walking across that busy road with so much construction. So we're not in favor of including what's across on the north side of Braddock Road for the walk zone.

[01:07:06] And that is our summary, and we are most happy to take any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Does anybody have any questions? Yes, Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you, Madam Chair. Once again, Kevin, thank you so much for putting this together. I did have three questions, but first off, I did reach out about Broad Run and Faulkner.

[01:07:28] There were a couple incidents there on that corner where two people were almost hit at separate times. And also, I pass Waxpool Elementary every day. So what are the plans there?

[01:07:44] Are you guys working on walk zones for Waxpool? Because to be honest, when I drive by, I don't even know how the kids get in there unless they come in on a bus because there's so much construction over there. And then, you know, my third question, the crossing guards, the crossing guards have to go through the sheriff's office.

[01:08:04] We cannot hire them. Am I hearing that correctly? That is correct. Right now, the crossing guard program is managed by the sheriff's department. I think there are other jurisdictions in the country that the school systems do that.

[01:08:19] We are not set up to do that. It takes some specialized training and equipment for that. It is a partnership that we've enjoyed with the sheriff's department. So we have not entertained doing anything different with that. I will say that they have struggled for years getting crossing guards to be there.

[01:08:35] So if we were to take the program over, we'd have the same problem. And it is something, there are specific rules about directing traffic in the public right-of-way. So we don't allow our principals and teachers to go out into the roadway to direct traffic. So before you're allowed to do that, you have to be certified and take certain trainings to do that.

[01:08:52] So we have not historically taken that on, and at this point recommend that we remain a partner with the Sheriff's Department. Not in the second one, I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. Broad Run and Wax Pool.

[01:09:08] And Belmont Station, I think that's a VDOT issue, right? No, it's a speed limit thing, because on the south side of Portsmouth, that's a 35-mile-an-of-zone, and we don't want elementary kids walking across that intersection.

[01:09:26] I don't understand your question. Well, if I may, there is a crosswalk on Portsmouth closer to Claiborne. I was mentioning further down Portsmouth near, oh my gosh, what's the street?

[01:09:43] I can't remember the street. Anyway, the street that Belmont Station's on, there's just... Nightwatch. Yeah, nightwatch. Thank you. Thank you. There's no way for kids to really... The sidewalk, I call it a lip, but there's no lip for the sidewalk even.

[01:10:00] It's just a curb. So there's no, could that be fixed? Can you put a crosswalk in there? Even though the speed limit's 35, you could get one of, you know, through VDOT, you can get one of those signs for people to slow down like everybody else has in certain school zones.

[01:10:20] Is that possible? It is possible, and we manage those signs. Our team puts those together. The transportation team has a person that manages all those signs with VDOT. It is still a dangerous intersection.

[01:10:36] We'll be happy to look at it again. We can talk to VDOT, but I think by the time we get done, there's just going to be too many safety concerns for that because it is a pretty highly traveled road. A lot of folks travel there between Belmont Ridge and Claiborne Parkway, so there's a lot of traffic on there.

[01:10:54] And so we were just not comfortable having elementary kids walking across there. And we can have that in discussions. But Broad Run and Wax Pool, I had just mentioned the Broad Run just recently to you in the past week.

[01:11:10] But Wax Pool, if you can give me more or give everybody more information on what's going on there. A lot of construction. When do they anticipate that construction to be done? So that's a major project, and that's the county's project to widen Belmont Ridge Road, North Star Boulevard, and so that's a four-lane divided highway.

[01:11:28] They are, as you can probably see when you go by right now, they are making the connection to Black Angus Drive, which is the road that we constructed when we built the school. And I'm not exactly sure when that's going to open up. It's still probably six to eight months away, and so that's a major intersection there.

[01:11:44] And so it's not a safe place right now with all that construction. And you had lane closures and a lot of other things going on. So we will watch that closely, but right now that's not where we want kids walking either. And Broad Run and Faulkner, you're talking about where that's a four-way stop, I believe.

[01:12:02] And so we'll look into that. I mean, we hadn't heard about any incidences on that, but we'll check into that about folks. I do have, I had some constituents reach out to me so I could send you the information if you'd like. That'd be great. There were two separate incidents.

[01:12:18] Thank you so much for everything. Thank you. Board members, do any, yes, Ms. Donahue. Let's finish up with this and then I'll let you do your disclosure. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[01:12:35] I do have some questions for Mr. Lewis. You can do that without the disclosure for right now. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Lewis. I'm your associate. I'm sorry, I'm terrible with names and I've already forgotten. But thank you for being here, and thank you for the information that you're sharing with us tonight.

[01:12:51] I do have just a couple of questions. So my first question is with regard to the Catoctin, the change to the Catoctin walk zone, because I believe you had it marked as a new construction change, and I take it that is related to the large housing development that's going in in between there and county.

[01:13:14] Is that correct? That's correct. Okay, thank you. And I'm also aware that Catoctin is one of the elementary schools that has the early start times where the students have to be in the room by 7.30. I was curious, how many of the other elementary schools that you've mentioned where we have expanded walk zones are the elementary schools that have the early 7.30 start times?

[01:13:39] We don't have that information right with us tonight, but we can certainly get that. Okay. I'd be interested to know that. This, for me, this adds to the safety concern that we've already discussed previously in this forum about the students, especially the elementary school students having to walk to school in the dark, in the cold, especially if we're expanding the walk zones.

[01:14:04] And then my other question is with regard to Moore Field Station. I didn't fully understand how it is that it's so many more students in the expanded walk zone because it was not labeled on your chart as being related to new construction.

[01:14:25] So I was just curious of how it is that it's that amount of students. So that area is a pretty significant housing development with lots of multifamily homes that have been there, and they were there when we were building the school as well.

[01:14:43] So that's an established community. And until they put in the crosswalk, we did not want to have students walking through essentially their parking area. It's a private road. So now they put that in there. They provided a safe passage for that. So now we feel comfortable including the whole area.

[01:14:59] And because it's an established area, there's a number of kids already there. I see. So it's not new construction because this subdivision already was there. Right. The new construction is just they constructed a crosswalk. Thank you very much. Any other questions?

[01:15:17] I think we're good. Thank you so much. And before we recess, why don't we have Ms. Donahue, would you please read your disclosure? Thank you, Madam Chair.

[01:15:34] As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding employee salaries, the budget, and or health insurance, and any other discussion that may include or affect salary and benefits for LCPS employees.

[01:15:50] Specifically, my spouse, my two minor children, and I are enrolled in LCPS health insurance that may be affected by any potential changes to employee salaries, the budget, and or health insurance. Additionally, my sister-in-law is an LCPS employee who does not reside with me and is not dependent on me.

[01:16:06] These subjects include thousands of employees, well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may be affected, of which my spouse, my minor children, my sister-in-law, and I am included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest.

[01:16:21] this disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years thank you miss donahue while i know we're a little early right now um i think we're going to just going to go ahead and recess for dinner and we will reconvene at 6 30 so the board is now

[01:16:40] in recess y'all got quiet real fast and i hadn't even said anything uh the board is coming out of

[02:00:08] recess at this time and we'll be picking up with items 7.01 the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem before you this evening is the wildcat chorus from willard middle school in aldi virginia under the under the direction of mr eric jacobs and miss damaris odobode the wildcat chorus program has over 400 students spread across six different performing ensembles

[02:00:47] the wildcat chorus program is a part of the larger willard music department whose orchestra band and choir programs have received consistent superior ratings at district assessment making willard miller school a blue ribbon school of musical excellence since its inception as recognized by the virginia music educators association at this time i will ask everyone

[02:01:12] to rise for the pledge of allegiance and remain standing for the national anthem the next item on

[02:03:38] the agenda is student staff recognitions. We will start with item 8.01, Department of School Leadership, Middle School Intramural Volleyball, and 3-on-3 Basketball Recognition, presented by Mr. Derek Ferry, Assistant Director of High School Athletics and Activities. Good evening, Madam Chair, Dr. Spence, and members of the school board. In the 2023-2024 school year, LCPS began the Middle

[02:04:16] School Pilot Intramural Sports Program at Harper Park, River Bend, Seneca Ridge, and Smarts Mill Middle School. Each quarter, LCPS offers a different sport for students to participate in after school. First quarter was seven-on-seven flag football. Second quarter was volleyball.

[02:04:32] Third quarter was three-on-three basketball. And fourth quarter is going to be seven-on-seven soccer. LCPS had over 438 students participate in the Middle School Volleyball Intramural Tournament sports program and 299 participated in the three-on-three basketball. Tonight we are we are honoring the team champions for volleyball and the three-on-three basketball. LCPS hosted the middle school intramural volleyball tournament at Tuscaloosa High School on Saturday, February 3rd.

[02:05:02] The top two teams from each of the participating schools competed for the LCPS championship. This year, the champion team hails from Smarts Mill Middle School. The champion, Smarts Mill McDonald's Elite, beat the Smarts Mill Seed Swipers in three sets with the final set, the third set being 15 to 14.

[02:05:26] At this time, I ask the Smarts Mill champions to please come up.

[02:06:29] Thank you.

[02:06:59] LCPS hosted the middle school intramural three-on-three basketball tournament at Potomac Falls High School on Saturday, April 6. The top two teams from each of the participating middle schools competed for the LCPS championship. The champion team hails from Seneca Ridge.

[02:07:16] The Seneca Ridge Flying A's beat the Riverbend Wizards in overtime 10-8. At this time, if we can have representatives from Seneca Ridge, please come up to the dais and receive a picture with our school board and superintendent.

[02:07:43] Tonight presents an opportunity to extend a heartfelt recognition to the outstanding individuals and teams from LCPS

[02:08:28] who have exemplified excellence by clinching a state championship in VHL athletics. Their unwavering commitment, relentless dedication, and tireless efforts have culminated in a remarkable achievement this past winter. LCPS had 15 student-athletes this winter who captured a VHL individual state title.

[02:08:51] First, starting with Broad Run High School's Tark Benelodicum triumphed in the VHL Class 4 State Indoor Track Meet, clocking an impressive time of 4 minutes, 18.96 seconds, and 1,600 meters.

[02:09:20] And as I call your name, if you can come up to the podium, please. Next up is Eleanor Dean from Freedom High School, who won the VHL Girls Wrestling Open Division State Championship in the 138-pound weight class.

[02:09:43] Next, we have Aiden Schutfeld from Independence High School, who won the VHL Class 5 Wrestling State Championship in the 120-pound weight class. Next, we have Hannah Rilo from Independence High School who won the VHL Class 5 State Indoor Track Meet in the high jump by jumping a height of 5 feet 9 inches.

[02:10:23] Next, we have Anna Hardman from John Champ High School who won the VHL Class 4 State Championship in the 1,000 meters by clocking a time of 3 minutes and 2.75 seconds.

[02:10:56] Next is Lincoln Kelly from Loudoun County High School, who won the VHL Class 4 State Wrestling Championship at 126 pounds. Next is Justin Lowry from Loudoun County High School, who won the VHL Class 4 State Wrestling Championship in the 157-pound weight class.

[02:11:18] Next is Octavian Ashford from Loudoun County High School, who won the VHL Class 4 State Wrestling Championship in the 175-pound weight class.

[02:11:45] Next is Ty Blair from Loudoun Valley High School, who won the VHL Class 4 State Indoor Track Championship in the 3,200 meters by clocking a time of 9 minutes, 21.12 seconds.

[02:12:02] Next is Lily O.

[02:12:22] from Riverside High School, who won the VHL Girls Wrestling Open Division State Championship in the 120-pound weight class.

[02:12:35] Next is Aria Ibizube from Riverside High School who won the VHL Class 5 State Indoor Track Championship in the shot put with a throw of 42 feet 6 inches.

[02:13:00] Next is Sawyer Jones from Woodgrove High School who won the VHL Class 4 State Wrestling Championship in the 144-pound weight class. Next is Austin Watson from Woodgrove High School who won the VHL Class 4 state wrestling championship in the 150 pound weight class and our last individual state

[02:13:37] champion is connor solomon from woodgrove high school connor won the vsl class four state indoor track championship in the 55 meter dash with a time of 6.42 seconds and the 300 meter dash with

[02:13:52] a time of 34. 77 seconds.

[02:14:33] Now on to the 2023-2024 VHL winner team state champions where LCPS had two teams capture the VHL state titles. Our first team is being recognized tonight. Our first team being recognized tonight is the girls basketball team from Woodgrove High School which captured the VHL class four state championship on the basketball court of the VCU Segal Center. At this

[02:15:07] time i ask them to please come up next team being recognized tonight is the wrestling team from

[02:15:54] woodgrove high school for capturing the vh cell class four state championship it was the school's first wrestling championship for woodgrove high school and the first ever wrestling team state

[02:16:07] title in the history of lcps okay we will move on to 8.

[02:18:10] 03 from human resources and talent development The 2024 Service Recognition Honorees, presented by Lisa Boland, Chief Human Resource Officer. Ms. Boland. Thank you, Chairman Fitzfield. Tonight marks a special occasion as we honor 10 exemplary employees in the following four categories.

[02:18:31] Service honorees with 40 and 45 years of service, new teachers of the year, teacher of the year, and principal of the year. Please join me in welcoming Carrie Sims, our Supervisor for Employee Recognition, who will be presenting these well-deserved awards.

[02:18:52] Good evening, Chair Mansfield, school board members, Dr. Spence, and guests. It is my distinct honor and privilege to recognize 10 individuals tonight for their dedication and service to LCPS, achievements in the classroom, and outstanding leadership.

[02:19:11] These incredible educators represent what we see each day throughout the division in all of our employees, unwavering commitment and a relentless pursuit of excellence. Our first category is four years of service. This year, there are three employees who have reached significant service milestones in their careers.

[02:19:30] Susan Lynn is unable to attend this evening. However, we would like to share her contributions to the division. Susan Lynn is celebrating 40 years of service in LCPS. Ms. Lynn has spent all 40 years of her career working in the Department of Support Services in facilities. She began in 1984 as an administrative assistant and has maintained that role for the majority of her career. Her colleagues say this about her. For 40 years, Susan Lynn has been the facilities department's administrative linchpin, ensuring seamless coordination and communication between maintenance technicians, custodians, school staff, and contractors.

[02:20:08] Her meticulous organization, attention to detail, and willingness to go above and beyond ensures the facilities department is able to provide LCPS students with a safe, quality, and inviting environment to learn and thrive. Beth and Charles are here.

[02:20:26] Congratulations to Susan. Next, Mary Paquette, better known to all as Beth, is celebrating 40 years of service in LCPS, all of them as a band teacher at J.L. Simpson Middle School, home of the Mustangs.

[02:20:43] From 1984 through 1994, she split her time between Simpson and Loudoun County High School. Ms. Paquette will be retiring at the end of this year, and she exemplifies the qualities in Simpson's Herd Initiative to be honorable, engaged, respectful, determined.

[02:21:03] During her tenure, she has built a pipeline of musicians from middle school to high school who have earned multiple accolades and awards. She's created an inviting and welcoming community in which students have reached and exceeded expectations and most importantly, brought the Simpson community together through her passion for instilling in students a lifelong love of music.

[02:21:23] Congratulations, Ms. Pellett. Charles Smith, senior, is celebrating 45 years of service in LCPS.

[02:21:45] His career began in 1974 as a business education teacher at Broad Run High School. Throughout his career, he has served as a business education teacher and school counselor at various high schools. Since 2006, he has served the Loudoun Valley High School community as a school counselor.

[02:22:04] Charles' dedication to relationships has been a cornerstone of his 45 years of service. His commitment to fostering connections and understanding individual needs has made a profound impact on countless students and families. This is evident in his work with the Campus Program, Gates Millennium Scholarship, and the United Negro Scholars STEM Program, making it clear that his contributions have helped make a college a viable option for many underrepresented students.

[02:22:33] Congratulations. Would any of our school board members like to address our honorees? Well, I first, that's a lot of years right there.

[02:22:54] I would like to thank you for your service and for all you have done for the students and for our whole community. Thank you. We'll be doing our pictures at the end, so you don't have to stand for all of these.

[02:23:17] At this time, I'd like our new Teacher of the Year honorees to come forward. Each year, the division honors one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school new teacher of the year award for exhibiting superior instructional skills in their first year of teaching and fostering positive relationships with students and families.

[02:23:46] Alexandra Cooper, a special education teacher for a K-2 autism class at Leesburg Elementary School, has been selected as the elementary school new teacher of the year. Members of the Leesburg Elementary School community submitted the following remarks in support of Ms. Cooper's nomination.

[02:24:03] Her skill and collaboration not only strengthens the support network for students with autism, but also promotes a sense of unity and shared responsibility within the school community. Alex's commitment to building bridges between home and school, as well as engaging with external community resources, demonstrates her dedication to providing comprehensive support for her students.

[02:24:24] Congratulations. Shreyas Kara. Shreyas Kara, a math teacher at Brambleton Middle School, has been selected as the middle school new teacher of the year. Members of the Brambleton Middle School community submitted the following remarks in support of Mr. Kara's nomination.

[02:24:44] Outside of the school day, Shreyas tutors students and teaches Brambleton's campfire program, which aims to fill gaps in learning for grade level math students who are lacking foundational math skills. He treats all the campfire students as his own and works with each student to help them understand the content presented to them through the use of manipulatives, group work, real-world examples, and collaboration.

[02:25:07] Congratulations, Shreya. Aisha Ahmed, an LCPS graduate and current U.S. History and World History teacher at Rockridge High School, has been selected as the High School New Teacher of the Year.

[02:25:28] Members of the Rockridge High School community submitted the following remarks in support of Ms. Ahmed's nomination. She is a source of inspiration, a mentor, a guide, and an amazing role model. Her enthusiasm for teaching is infectious, making every lesson creative and turning her lectures into something that keeps students engaged.

[02:25:47] Congratulations, Dr. Sharon. This year, we are proud to announce that we have selected two Loudoun County Teachers of the Year, as well as two Loudoun County Principals of the Year.

[02:26:10] As part of the goal of ensuring that staff are esteemed, exemplary, and supported, the division is focused on enhancing and streamlining our awards practices. This involves a planned shift in our timelines and criteria for our annual awards. Selecting two winners for this year for Teacher of the Year and Principal of the Year allows us to continue to participate in the Washington Post program while emphasizing the prestige of being named the Loudoun County Teacher and Principal of the Year.

[02:26:39] The Teacher of the Year award is based upon the criteria of instilling in students a desire to achieve, fostering strong relationships with students in the community, demonstrating outstanding leadership and contributing to the highest standards of education. This year there were 58 teachers nominated, the most submissions we have ever received.

[02:26:58] At this time, I'd like Andrew Bango to come forward. Andrew Bango, physical education teacher at Arcola Elementary School, has been selected as the Loudoun County Teacher of the Year and the LCPS nominee for the 2024 Washington Post Teacher of the Year Award.

[02:27:24] In a letter of recommendation, members of the Arcola community submitted the following remarks in support of Mr. Bango's nomination. Coach Bango nurtures positive growth mindsets for students where they can learn, feel valued, and grow as individuals. He inspires students to step outside their comfort zones to try new activities and become part of the larger community. Mr. Bango holds a bachelor's degree from Campbell University and was hired as a PE teacher at Arcola in 2011. In addition to teaching, he coached wrestling at Tuscarora high school for 10 years, winning multiple titles, including a state championship. At this time,

[02:28:00] I invite Mr. Bango to the podium. Hi, friends. Thank you so much. I just, I'm fortunate that I love my job, and I love to wake up on Mondays and get to work, and every week, that's never changed.

[02:28:23] I work with the best school, with the best teachers, the best staff, and I love my admin, and I couldn't do it without them. The support system I have in my life, my wife, my girls, Stephens, my principal, my former coaches and teachers who've impacted me through education have all made this possible. I love my people and I'm fortunate that I get to do what I do.

[02:28:48] Thank you all. At this time, I invite Kimberly Poole to please come forward. Kimberly Poole, CTE teacher at JL Simpson Middle School, has been selected as the Loudoun County Teacher of the year. In a letter of recommendation, members of the Simpson Middle School community submitted the following remarks in support of Ms. Poole's

[02:29:26] nomination. Kimberly Poole shines at the helm of our Intro to Computer Applications program as illuminated by her passion in working with each and every sixth grader as they learn how to successfully incorporate technology among their interdisciplinary learning experiences. Ms. Poole's heartfelt dedication to the Simpson community extends back nearly 30 years and represents a continuously immense impact on so many students, both past, present, and future, that is unmatched by many in our profession. Ms. Poole holds a bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech and a master's degree from Shenandoah

[02:30:01] University. She was hired by LCPS in 1995 and has spent her entire 29 year career at Simpson Middle School. I invite Ms. Poole to the podium. Thank you so much. And what an amazing day for Simpson Middle School. We have Ms. Paquette just shining in her 40 years with us. It makes me, you have my whole heart. Andrew Bango, fun fact, Simpson student. He

[02:30:37] was in seventh grade, my first year teaching at Simpson. So this is just an amazing day. I will tell you, God just blessed me the day that he chose me for Simpson. It makes me like, whoo. I was 23.

[02:30:54] Eric and I had not yet gotten married. We were married that October. Simpson is my home. I have been there since 95, been married there, had two kids. Well, not there, but had two kids, all of that good stuff. I teach with my sister, and I teach with my niece way back there.

[02:31:12] Simpson is an incredible place. I am so blessed to have worked with the students there for all of this time. I told them the other day, I don't know why anyone would be anything other than a teacher. It is so incredible. It is so rewarding. I don't know if they're gone, those boys.

[02:31:29] Those boys, they need to be a teacher. It's so rewarding. It's so incredible. And my heart is just beyond full. And the only thing I could come up with the other day was that I am just beautifully overwhelmed at receiving this honor. And thank you so, so much to all of you, Dr. D. Nicola, Dr. Spence, everybody.

[02:31:49] Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[02:32:04] - We invite you to view the video prepared by the Department of Communications and Community Engagement celebrating Andrew and Kimberly. - Andrew Bango is the ultimate role model.

[02:32:20] Coach Bango takes on multiple leadership positions throughout the school, volunteers to help wherever and whenever necessary, and makes a point of getting to know each student

[02:32:30] and colleague at Arcola deeply.

[02:33:04] - This school has an incredible way of making every one of her students feel valued, but it isn't by chance or coincidence. She is intentional about creating genuine connections, and it results in lasting and impactful mentoring relationships that I am so grateful for. I consider myself lucky to have had class with her every day in 6th grade, but even luckier that she has continued to be an invaluable role model and steadfast supporter of me ever since then.

[02:33:28] The New Year Award is based upon the criteria of leadership excellence, collaboration, listening, lifelong learning, and creating an environment in which students and staff can flourish and grow.

[02:34:07] At this time, I'd like to ask Nakisha Deal to come forward. Nakisha Deal, Principal of Mercer Middle School, has been selected as the Loudoun County Principal of the Year and the LCPS nominee for the Washington Post Principal of the Year Award.

[02:34:30] Ms. Deal has been the Principal of Mercer since 2019. She has also served as an Assistant Principal at Riverbend Middle School and Dean at Smarts Mill Middle School. Her staff writes of her, Under Nikesha's leadership, our school has become a model of collaborative culture, encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration among teachers, promoting professional development, and initiating community involvement.

[02:34:53] Collaboration is ingrained in our daily practices, with every staff member having a voice and being an integral part of our instructional team. This is clear through the development of the master schedule, which ensures common planning for the learning teams and interdisciplinary teams so they have time to collaborate.

[02:35:10] She supports this collaboration by attending these meetings and asking critical questions that deepen team members' thinking and promote reflection. Ms. Diehl holds a bachelor's degree from West Virginia University and a master's degree from Shenandoah University. This is her 14th year in LCPS.

[02:35:27] I invite Ms. Diehl to the podium. Good evening. So when they tell you you have 30 seconds, my staff knows. That's really hard for me. I'm Nikesha Diehl.

[02:35:44] I am the proud, blessed, and grateful principal at Mercer Middle School, and it is an honor to be here with all of you tonight and to accept this nomination and award. I would like to thank our superintendent, Dr. Aaron Spence, LCPS employee recognition, the LCPS school board, and the nominating committee for their efforts in recognizing me and my fellow awardees.

[02:36:03] A heartfelt thank you to the Mercer Middle School team, students, and our school community for the initial nomination, and to my family for teaching me that love is the catalyst for any great success. At Mercer, we stand behind a five-year core motto, one voice, one purpose, one vision.

[02:36:20] Creating a united team, which is why I am standing in front of you today. This concludes that a recognition for one is a recognition for each and every in our school community. And I humbly accept this recognition on behalf of every mountain lion tonight.

[02:36:36] Thank you so much. At this time, I'd like to ask Jeffrey Joseph to come forward.

[02:36:53] Jeff Joseph, principal of Dominion Trail Elementary School, has been selected as Loudoun County Principal of the Year. Mr. Joseph has been the principal of Dominion Trail since 2013.

[02:37:11] Prior to that, he served as an assistant principal at Emmerich, Pinebrook, and Arcola Elementary Schools. The following was submitted on behalf of Mr. Joseph. Another of Mr. Joseph's notable strengths lies in his talent for empowering and motivating others. He skillfully identifies and fosters the unique talents of those around him, enabling them to realize their full potential.

[02:37:34] Through his expert guidance in instructional planning, insightful feedback on lesson observation, and assistance in obtaining instructional materials, Mr. Joseph has played a crucial role in cultivating a culture of progress and ongoing development. Mr. Joseph holds a bachelor's degree from Clarion University of Pennsylvania and a master's degree from Shenandoah University.

[02:37:54] This is Mr. Joseph's 24th year in LCPS. I invite Mr. Joseph to the podium. Good evening.

[02:38:14] And like Nakisha, there's no way this is lasting only 30 seconds. I apologize. Chair Mansfield, Dr. Deans, Dr. Spence, thank you so much for this recognition. I do have a lot of thank yous to hand out because this is not anywhere near just my award.

[02:38:31] Thank you to Mrs. Kim, the person, the parent who nominated me for this recognition. Thank you to the students and families that I have the distinct honor of serving as their principal. Our Huskies are truly the best students around. I want to thank LCPS retiree, Patty McGinley, for hiring and taking a chance on me way back when in 2001, when I had a little bit more hair.

[02:38:52] I also want to thank Don Haddock, who is the principal of Emmerich Elementary, who gave me the first opportunity to become an assistant principal way back when. To Dr. Martin, our former director of elementary education, a huge thank you for the words of wisdom and support then and now as we continue on this career.

[02:39:11] To Elaine Lehman, all of our executive principals in the L.Ed. office for their leadership and support over the years. Lord knows I have needed it. Now for the real stars. And you have to excuse me for a minute. If you work at Dominion Trail or have ever worked with me at any school, can you please stand up for a minute?

[02:39:30] these are the real stars a wholehearted thank you for everything for the patience for the love for the understanding for not only for professional courtesy and relationships but for personal relationships that we've been through a lot and you all know what i'm talking about right love you all very very much and there was one other person that's in this room that i saw standing up paul pack liberty principal um paul sincere thank you for all the love and support

[02:40:07] you've given over the years. We've been friends for over 20 years. We'll always have NFL street football during AP meetings or after AP meetings, not during. Sorry. I don't know if my director's here, but I apologize for that. I'm almost done. I promise. Thank you to my whole family for coming here this evening. I have a lot of aunts and uncles that have shown up, a couple of cousins and nieces that have shown up here as well. Thank you so much. All I can tell you, if I've been brought up to value the relationships, respect people, and to work hard. True testament to my upbringing. To this day, this is a message and practice that my

[02:40:47] parents, Ed and Carol Joseph, model each and every day of their lives. They are two loving people who have done so much for my brother and I. Specifically, they have volunteered to cook spaghetti for over 500 people at my school, which is a very fun day in the kitchen, being yelled at by your mom as the principal in front of students. All the way to when I told him about this recognition, the first words out of their mouth where we're on our way. They've driven here from Florida to be here today, and I

[02:41:17] love you both very much. I am almost done. I apologize. I am almost done. The best friend is someone who never goes away and is always there for you no matter what. Luckily, this person had no choice and could not go away because he's my brother. I'm blessed to have the best brother in the world, Jim Joseph, who was also here with two of his three lovely daughters. I feel so lucky to be your brother, and I love you very, very much. Thank you, Jimmy. As you can tell, I travel with

[02:41:54] a lot of people, and most of them are my family. I have four wonderful, beautiful, sometimes a pain in the butt, awesome children. Zoe, Tommy, Will, and Nate, thank you so much for taking care of each other, taking care of mom on those late nights when dad's not home, and thank you so much for volunteering at my school. The last whole school hide-and-go-seek event we had was phenomenal, just because you all were there helping manage the kids.

[02:42:19] So thank you for that. And now the one person, the rock in the foundation of our family, my wife, Corey. Everyone knows behind a man who might look like he has it together, which is not me. And the only reason he looks like that is because of a strong, organized, and perfect woman doing, I said most of the work, but usually it's all of the work.

[02:42:37] Thank you so much for your patience and understanding for the work. That often keeps me away from home. Thank you for your understanding of each and every phone call that ends up with me saying, Not sure when I'm going to get home. I'm trying to help out another family or a teacher. Most of all, thank you for what you do as a teacher for this county at Round Hill Elementary.

[02:42:55] A mother for our children, a friend, and a wife. Love you very much, Corey. Thank you. As you all can tell, very supported by many groups of people. I would not be in this position without their support.

[02:43:11] So, again, thank you to everyone for their love and support. And, school board, thank you so much for this recognition. Appreciate it. At this time, we'd like to share the video prepared by the Department of Communications and Community Engagement celebrating Nikisha and Jeffrey.

[02:43:39] Nikki Deal ensures every student, staff, and community member has their voice represented within Mercer. From the posters proudly displayed on the walls to including student voices in developing a quote that represents the school community.

[02:44:32] Joseph's ability to effectively communicate and inspire others is truly remarkable. possesses outstanding interpersonal skills which enables him to build strong relationships with team members and stakeholders fostering a collaborative

[02:44:51] and inclusive work environment.

[02:45:20] Help me congratulate and honor all of our distinguished employees.

[02:45:46] We invite the chair and vice chair of the board and Dr. Spence to come down from the dais and the members of the school board to

[02:45:57] stand with pictures with each of our honorees.

[02:49:08] that was so many celebrations it was really pretty exciting so we'll wait a few minutes and

[02:49:09] for people to exit out and um and then we'll start with item nine okay at this time we'll move on to

[02:50:02] items 9.01 and 9.02 our student school board representatives comments our students this evening are sophia berg dominion high school and mariam tofwin from potomac falls high school we'll start with Ms. Berg. Ms. Berg, you have the floor. Thank you. Good evening, members of the school board.

[02:50:29] My name is Sophia Berg, and I am currently a senior at Dominion High School. It's been a pleasure to serve with you on the dais this month, and I am beyond grateful for this opportunity to represent my fellow Titans. As I mentioned at the last meeting, LCPS high schools, including Dominion, Lightridge, Rockridge, Loudoun Valley, Woodgrove, and Parkview, hosted 17 delegations for the first in-person Loudoun international summit since our return to in-person learning.

[02:50:57] The theme of the summit this year was bridging borders, breaking barriers, youth forging global connections. Festivities throughout the week included field trips to Washington, D.C., local history sites in Waterford, Leesburg, and a global share fair at Woodgrove High School and shadowing days at host schools. Over the weekend, hosts and their delegates visited places such as Georgetown, and local parks. A closing celebration was hosted by Dominion on Sunday.

[02:51:25] International delegates and their hosts enjoyed a life-changing experience where they got to connect with passionate students from around the world, sharing culture, experiences, and perspectives. This week at Dominion, we're celebrating Spirit Week, the last one ever for me and my peers in the class of 2024. Following upcoming AP exams, seniors look forward to an exciting end of our LCPS experience, including a class trip to King's Dominion, Senior Sunset, senior nights senior walk at our former elementary schools and of course graduation itself as I finish my senior year I get to look back on all these amazing memories and opportunities I have

[02:52:02] had these past four years at Dominion I would like to thank Dr. Brewer and the school board members for providing me with this amazing opportunity thank you so much for your time and have a great evening thank you Ms. Berg and now Mrs. Tafwood good evening school board members educators families and fellow representatives my name is Miriam Tafwood and I'm a current senior at Potomac Falls High School.

[02:52:31] It is a privilege to be speaking before you all tonight in the utmost honor to be representing Potomac Falls. When I sat down to prepare my comments for this evening, I was overwhelmed with the numerous angles to explore, for I recognized the importance of using my brief platform tonight to champion a cause that would resonate with the entire Potomac Falls community.

[02:52:48] We recently held our annual Night at the Falls, which is a community-based event that brings together hundreds of people and promotes clubs, local businesses, and volunteer organizations. Every year, Night at the Falls gathers Panthers, rising past and present for an event that is, in the words of the mom to the elementary-aged boys I babysit for, not to be missed. Whether you were there to explore the fire truck or to get your face painted by our school's National Art Honor Society chapter or to watch or play in the infamous dodgeball tournament, our building was packed. Although I was relieved by the vibrant and lively atmosphere suggesting the event's success, I couldn't help but be reminded of the ongoing issue

[02:53:26] of overcrowding during the school day. Our building, which was constructed in 1997, was designed to house 1,200 students. Currently, we have nearly 1,700 students enrolled for the 2023 to 2024 school year. The constraints and limitations imposed by our school's infrastructure are negatively impacting our students. Due to overcrowded classrooms, many students are unable to receive the individualized attention from teachers that is crucial to their success.

[02:53:51] Additionally, our capacity to offer a diverse range of courses is hindered by the lack of available space, which further sets back our students by weakening their progress and narrowing their scope of class opportunities. Whether through rezoning to better balance student distribution across the eastern part of the county, repurposing spaces that are no longer used for their intended purpose, adding additional trailers, I mean learning cottages, or allocating expenses to help fund the expansion of our school building, I challenge LCPS to consider innovative approaches and explore creative solutions for addressing the issue of limited space and subsequent overcrowding at PFHS. By transcending our current limitations we have the

[02:54:30] power to foster more equitable learning environments for our students and staff. As I finalize my remarks I'd like to express my sincerest gratitude to my principal Dr. Wolf and to Dr. Spence for the opportunity to speak today and to you all for your time and consideration. Thank you all and have a nice evening. Thank you both for being with us tonight and for your remarks. We'll move on to agenda item 10.01 the superintendent report presented by Dr. Aaron Spence. Dr. Spence. Thank you madam chair members of the board it's my pleasure this evening to share some good news

[02:55:07] from around the division starting with a update on the school business partnership executive council. The Loudon School Business Partnership Executive Council held its annual partnership breakfast last Friday April 19th at the National Conference Center. We had more than 600 representatives from business and community organizations, school staff, and administrators in attendance at this event. We also were able to honor 11 businesses, community partners, and individuals for their support of Loudoun County Public Schools. And the event included the presentation of the Jay Hamilton Lambert Exemplary Leadership in Education and Community Service Award to Odette Scobel,

[02:55:44] retired science office supervisor, in recognition of all of her contributions to LCPS. And thank you to those board members who were able to join us for that celebration. I and several members of my staff as well as LCPS principals and school staff have been pleased to have the opportunity to attend luncheons this year which have been organized by Interfaith Bridges. The Reverend Dr. David Malam and the Board of Loudon Interfaith Bridges organized eight luncheons around the county to provide time and space for community members to come together and discuss what's important, how we support each other. I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to connect and

[02:56:21] occasions such as these are, as you know, valuable beyond measure. I'd also like to express my thanks to Dr. Malam and to the Board of Interfaith Bridges, and this is especially timely as he is moving on to new opportunities at the end of this month. So we want to send our many thanks to Dr. Malam and also to Interfaith Bridges for being such strong supporters and partners in LCPS.

[02:56:46] I also want to mention that Freedom High School HOPE, which stands for Helping Other People Every day the hope club with support from the school's special education team hosted its annual hope dance for students with special needs students with special needs from all lcps high schools were invited to attend and more than 400 rsvp'd for this event hope club members decorated freedom's gym with streamers balloons and other decorations and the theme this year was around the world photo stations with backdrops of scenes from around the world were scattered throughout the

[02:57:21] gym for students to take selfies and group photos, and attendees danced to popular music, hung out with each other, and frankly just had a great time. We want to congratulate Caitlin Miller, a senior at Loudoun Valley High School who has been selected as a 2024 Cook College Scholar. The Cook College Scholarship Program, which is part of the Jack Kent Cook Foundation, provides last dollar funding and can provide as much as $55,000 per year to eligible students who are pursuing a bachelor's degree at an accredited institution.

[02:57:52] In addition to the Monetary Award, Cook Scholars also received comprehensive educational advising. Caitlin's interested in studying either mechanical or aeronautical engineering and has been accepted to both Harvard University and Georgia Tech. In addition to Caitlin's strong academic record, she's involved in a number of other extracurricular activities, including, as you might have guessed by now, being a student pilot.

[02:58:14] We wish all the best to Caitlin as she is preparing for her next steps. Next, Manju Gomatinayagum, a seventh grade science teacher at Farmwell Station Middle School, was awarded an Environmental Excellence Award from the Loudoun County Environmental Commission for founding and conducting the school's Young Naturalist Club.

[02:58:36] The annual Environmental Excellence Awards honor individuals, businesses, non-profit organizations, and educators for their leadership on environmental issues. Ms. Gomatinayagum said that her students' pride in their work and excitement to learn about nature drives her commitment to this activity, so we want to say congratulations to her for receiving this award. Another teacher being recognized, Shirley Fortenbaugh, a gifted resource teacher at Round Hill Elementary School, has been awarded the 2024 William C. Lowry Mathematics Educator of the Year Award from the Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Each year, VCTM recognizes

[02:59:14] a classroom teacher from each level of instruction for their outstanding work in the field of mathematics. Ms. Fortenbaugh was recognized not only for her commitment to her students attainment of math skills but also for her research into the instruction of math which she shares with colleagues at the state national and even international level. So congratulations Ms.

[02:59:34] Fortenbaugh on her award. We also want to acknowledge Mr. Kevin Terry director of school counseling at Rockridge High School who received the John Blackburn Award for ethics in college admissions from the potomac and chesapeake association for college admissions counseling this award recognizes individuals who are dedicated to promoting equal access to higher education for all students mr terry was nominated by rockridge principal john duelman who credits him with providing thousands of rockridge students with robust pathways to opportunity and success

[03:00:07] congratulations mr terry on your recognition and then recognizing another teacher woodgrove music teacher Samantha Oakley has been appointed as the symphonic orchestra director of the Loudoun Symphony Youth Orchestra. Ms. Oakley has served as Woodgrove's director of orchestra since 2015 and also served as the Loudoun Symphony Youth Orchestra's interim conductor this year. During this time the orchestra saw unprecedented growth in membership and musical development and so we want to congratulate Ms. Oakley on her selection as symphonic orchestra director. Recognizing

[03:00:45] another one of our team natalie allen lcps's chief communications and community engagement officer was listed among the top 25 chief community officers of 2024 by women we admire which is an organization recognizing and celebrating women who make an impact this recognition highlights community and communications officers who oversee initiatives that focus on strong relationships with stakeholders and who execute strategies to engage and connect organizations so congratulations to ms allen on this recognition and finally we want to remind families that the application

[03:01:20] portal for virtual distance elementary is open virtual distance learning is available for elementary school students based on medical need academic preference and administrative placements in the 2024-25 school year those who are interested in virtual distance learning for grades one through five must complete the online application for enrollment consideration the virtual distance learning application portal will remain open until friday may the 10th for more information you can check out the website shown on this slide or check your emails and text messages because information is coming out today in addition to messages which have previously been sent and also we'll be

[03:01:58] sending home additional information over the coming weeks to make sure everybody has a chance to enroll who is interested madam chair that concludes my report thank you dr spence so at this time we will move on to item 11.01 public comment we'll start with virtual and thank you for engaging with the school board through public comment process the school board welcomes comments from loudon county residents and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system speakers must limit comments to the time allotted

[03:02:35] based on the number of speakers in the agenda this evening all speakers have been allotted two minutes each for public comment please be advised 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 the dignity of the school board at all times please remain seated unless arriving departing speaking at the podium or during a break violations of civility decorum and respect include shouting heckling jeering applause or other noise which disrupts or delays the meeting obstructing speakers from being able to see the school board and vice versa

[03:03:12] interrupting speakers attempting to speak when not called to do so by the chair and approaching a speaker otherwise attempting to intimidate disparage or distract speaker staff member or other meeting attendees speakers should refrain from vulgarity obscenities defamation profanity or other like breaches of respect nor made 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 the school board requests and comments on an in a school the

[03:03:49] 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 and direct their comments to the school board for lcps policy 2520 members of the school board will not answer questions or respond directly to the public during the public comment period violations of decorum or civility by any meeting attendee may result in the chair directing staff to remove the attendee from the remainder of the meeting repeated or persistent violations of decorum or civility by the audience may result

[03:04:25] in on the decision of the chair public comment being tabled until a later point in the meeting's agenda limiting the number of attendees in the meeting room during public comment for safety reasons or the public comment pending period ending for the evening copies of materials for board members should be given to the public information officer in the media box at the back of the boardroom prior to the start of the meeting please provide 12 copies of the materials under no circumstances may a speaker approach the dais the public is reminded that access to school board meetings is available through lcps tv on comcast channel 18 and verizon fios channel 43

[03:05:04] the live stream of the meeting may be viewed on the website we look forward to hearing your comments and we will now start with virtual public comment the first one is glenn cunningham followed by pj cunningham we do not have glenn cunningham thank you uh pj cunningham followed by brenda bankston organizational leadership we look to the loudon county public school superintendent assistant superintendents teachers and the whole community to provide our children

[03:05:43] with a free, appropriate public education. We demand leadership, transparency, and accountability. We are humans. Above our prestigious titles, our children are humans with developing bodies and minds who we hope one day will become mature, responsible young adults who are law-abiding citizens of our global, diverse society.

[03:06:06] Dr. Spence, you make $375,000 a year. You need diverse teachers and more bus drivers, processing guards, custodians, pay the employee to keep our public schools running better. Kids under 13 should not have to wake up at 6.30 a.m.

[03:06:25] to get up, fight off wildlife, to walk themselves to the school bus to get to school at 7.30 a.m. Hold teachers accountable for their job. Train, listen to them, respect, be inclusive as outlined in policy 7014.

[03:06:48] Report assaults and injuries, overdoses as soon as possible to parents and law enforcement. Stop under-reporting incidents. Stop manipulating data. In one esteemed charter school, there were less than 70 respondents to a parent survey.

[03:07:03] This charter school contains 144 students and only less than 70 parents responded, and they love this esteemed school. What about the other 50% of respondents out of 144 parents groups that did not respond and who are not happy?

[03:07:25] This is unacceptable. Hold the Hillsborough Charter School accountable and revoke their charter immediately. Suspend the charter, which is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Thank you, Brenda Bankson, and then we will follow by Sandy Sullivan.

[03:07:48] Yet, last meeting, ridicule of the school board sparked audience boos when a speaker stated, I know you're all women, but I need you to try really hard to think critically. Listening online, I felt and heard outrage.

[03:08:08] No camera on the speaker was needed to feel the disparaging effect. For that speaker to imply, to insinuate that women cannot think critically, showed us a textbook example of this elected body being otherized and dehumanized with the insulting theme that women are inherently lesser.

[03:08:33] Was the speaker's incendiary comment purposeful or accidental? It showed students an example of adults behaving badly, hardly a sterling reputation. I hope our student representatives realize that while a battle for equality and equity persists, a majority of Loudoun citizens do not show disdain for women because of their sex.

[03:09:01] A search shows that women, on average, are good at managing multiple problems, thoughts, and emotions simultaneously. Brain scans have shown that neuron activity lights up throughout women's brains, not just in highly specialized areas.

[03:09:22] D-E-I-A and S-E-L help to combat mistreatment, sexism, and misogyny. Women think, both creatively and critically, a fact we can embrace.

[03:09:42] Thank you. We'll move on to in-person speakers, starting with Sandy Sullivan and then Ryan Nise. Good evening.

[03:09:58] I'm Sandy Sullivan, an elementary school teacher who currently serves the members of the Loudoun Education Association. as their president la looks forward to the may 2nd joint committee on a collective bargaining being a time of discussion and action decisions need to be made surrounding the eight items of concern la brought forward regarding the current draft of the collective bargaining resolution running the meeting by roberts rules of order will provide the format which will allow the joint committee to present a resolution to the legislative audit and policy committee to adopt and then forward the resolution to the full school board for vote.

[03:10:33] Roadblocks and delays have been placed before LEA through this entire process. One example is authorization cards for licensed staff were verified in February of 2023, well over a year ago. That should have triggered 180 days until the school board voted on a collective bargaining resolution.

[03:10:51] This all occurred before you took your seats on the school board, but with the support we have heard from the majority of current school board members, We urge you to ensure that this process is not delayed any further. Your employees look forward to engaging in meaningful collective bargaining with you to provide for the best working conditions for your employees and the best learning conditions for your students.

[03:11:14] Thank you. Ryan Nisey, followed by Bill Sigler. Hello, my name is Ryan Nisey, and I'm a junior at Potomac Falls High School.

[03:11:31] I'm representing the music department at Potomac Falls High School, including the Trium Music Honor Society. Music has surrounded my upbringing, and I've been in the music department for over half my life. This is true for many of my fellow Loudoun County peers. The students in the school district are some of the state's most talented, incredible, and dedicated musicians in the state.

[03:11:52] LCPS guitar students make up 80% of all students that attend All-Virginia Guitar Ensemble. Because LCPS has continued to fund middle and high school music programs, many students, such as myself, can bring these personal experiences from music into the academic setting. Loudoun County is an extremely diverse district in its musical talent, and it is consistently ranked as one of the top 100 communities for music in the country.

[03:12:18] As Loudoun County progresses through the ever-changing musical environment, I hope this institution continues its support of musical programs and provide equal and, more importantly, equitable funding for all Loudoun County musical programs. It is unfortunate to say that some programs, such as those at my home high school, do not nearly receive the same amount of attention and funding as compared to other schools, i.e., Rock Ridge's Semi-Trailer.

[03:12:42] I implore this board to explore more equitable options when it comes to funding musical programs, particularly those in our older schools. Nonetheless, I'm honored to reside in a district that maintains musical programs, and I hope my insight into the musical programs will build a better future that is more equitable for musical education.

[03:13:01] I also have more time. I'd like to thank Dr. Spence for hosting those community nights. They really, I really appreciate those and make me, I feel a lot better as a student attending school, and the school board for allowing someone as myself to speak here tonight and address problems that affect me on a day-to-day basis. Thank you. Thank you. Bill Sigler, followed by Lauren Sigler. Good evening. I've urged LCPS to take steps to help your student-athletes deal with mental health challenges for nearly one year now. At the March 12th board meeting, I again asked

[03:13:39] LCPS to involve mental health professionals in the special permission and VHSL waiver process and to make your policies on those waivers transparent for students and parents. But it appears that nothing has changed. Later in March, LCPS sent an email to all parents that continued to obfuscate on this process.

[03:13:57] Your special permission email instructed parents that they had to, quote, review and understand VHSL eligibility rules and regulations, unquote. But you didn't inform them that LCPS does not follow the VHSL rules on waivers for mental health welfare.

[03:14:14] LCPS has stated in our daughter's case that waiver requests are only granted to students who are homeless or are transferring due to a broken home or the death of a parent. If this is your policy, you should state it clearly to students and parents. But your student handbook still says that mental health welfare is a valid reason for a waiver, as do the VHSL rules. Which one is it?

[03:14:36] What is your policy? After nine months of litigating against the board, I still don't know. You're leaving parents and student-athletes misinformed and unable to make educated decisions. I emailed all of you about this after the special permission email came out and received no response.

[03:14:55] LCPS continues to pay lip service to student-athlete mental health, but when will you actually take some simple action to help student-athletes struggling with mental health issues? When will you make necessary changes to the waiver process, or at least inform student-athletes and their parents what your policies and procedures actually are.

[03:15:18] Why are you continuing to put students with documented medical health conditions at risk? We and other constituents want to see actions, not words. Thank you. Thank you. Lauren Sigler, followed by Chris Countryman.

[03:15:34] To be clear, Loudoun County Public Schools relied on one email chain to deny our daughter the opportunity to heal from mental illness as requested to you by her doctor and her therapist. In his investigation of Lily's claims, the county athletic director said he communicated with the school psychologist, the principal, the counseling director, and the athletic director.

[03:15:53] To be clear, what communicated meant was that he sent one email to those individuals. He didn't ask about Lily's level of lacrosse play. He asked them if they knew anything of her mental illness claims. The principal responded to this email with two sentences with rumors he heard about Lily's level of lacrosse play.

[03:16:11] The counsel responded by including two paragraphs that she cut and pasted purporting to be from coaches, but didn't identify them by name. The head coach claims she didn't write a word of this email. The paragraphs from the coaches mentioned rumors of our child being bullied, but did not discuss or disclose that they investigated any of it.

[03:16:32] They did, however, take the time to mention that Lily wasn't a very good lacrosse player. The counselor then reported her secondhand paraphrasing of the one thing the school psychologist she claimed reported. We'll forward you this email this evening so you can read it for yourselves.

[03:16:49] Let's be clear though, Lily suffered harassment and bullying off the lacrosse field. But apparently all your staff member needed to dismiss her claims were two sentences from a principal about her playing time and a cut and paste from a counselor. No conversations with Lily, her parents, her doctors, not even the staff at the school that witnessed her being harassed.

[03:17:09] We would have gladly spoken to your staff. We would have released permission to talk to her doctors. But that would have meant someone actually cared about a child in your county with mental health issues. How is this how you treat mental health? How is this okay? We urge you to speak with your outside attorney who can tell you what happened in court on Friday, and he can tell you about the thousands of taxpayer dollars he's continuing to spend.

[03:17:33] Sit down with him. Sit down with us. Care, please. Thank you. Chris Countryman, followed by Corey Brunet. Thank you for having me tonight.

[03:17:51] I am Chris Countryman. I am currently a second grade teacher, and I am the president-elect of LEA for next year. I've changed my, what I'm going to say a little bit from what I planned originally, but I'm going to make an assumption that you are all here with the intention of making public education in Loudoun the best it can be.

[03:18:13] I'm going to ask you to contemplate the following. Who do you want to make it better for? Hopefully, you're not going through a list of individuals you know. It is for the students. So how do you reach the bulk of the students? And the answer is very simple, your staff.

[03:18:32] Why are we having trouble filling teacher positions? But teachers are not the only ones that impact the students or the educational experience every day for our students. Our bus drivers and attendants make a difference. Why are we having trouble hiring bus drivers and attendants?

[03:18:50] Our cafeteria workers make a difference. Why are we having trouble hiring cafeteria workers? Are custodians make a difference? Why are we having trouble hiring custodians? I can keep going, but the answer is the same.

[03:19:05] Work conditions, pay especially for support staff, and the expectations of your entire staff are not reasonable. I invite you to get into the schools and ask these questions. Why are we having trouble?

[03:19:21] not of the principals and the staff that continue to provide lip service to the boss, but to the actual frontline workers that are declaring enough on a daily basis. If you think I am exaggerating, you are out of touch with the masses.

[03:19:37] There are small pockets of fabulous leaders that empower their staff and involve them in making things better like the few that were here tonight. But I promise you that it is a very small minority. Thank you.

[03:19:53] Corrie Brunet, followed by Andrea Weiskopf. Good evening. My name is Corrie Brunet, and I'm an English learner teacher at Broad Run High School. At the beginning of 2023, LEA got enough collective bargaining cards authorized by a third party to demonstrate a desire from LCPS employees to pursue and acquire collective bargaining.

[03:20:18] This was a massive effort that took two years with an unforeseen roadblock imposed in December of 2022. That is, that out of nowhere, Dr. Smith, then the interim superintendent and current chief of staff, declared that LEA representatives could no longer enter any work site during work hours.

[03:20:37] The intent was clear. He and other staff did not want LCPS employees to gain collective bargaining. They were deciding for us, like it's always been. The previous school board voted to move ahead with collective bargaining, And just two months later, LCPS quietly hired an anti-worker law firm to draw up the worst collective bargaining resolution in the Commonwealth.

[03:20:59] It was not made public until November last year, and with the clock ticking, the previous school board decided to kick the can down the road, delaying and stalling again with one positive caveat, that a subcommittee would be created to work on collective bargaining and that LEA would have representation on that subcommittee.

[03:21:18] I am part of that subcommittee. This brings us to the first meeting of the subcommittee last Monday. If you were not present to witness the masterclass in how to waste four hours, let me give you the only takeaway. We had eight points to discuss and decide and we got nothing accomplished.

[03:21:35] It seems that delaying and stalling is not just a staff tactic anymore. Well, LCPS educators are fed up and we are serious about collective bargaining. Many of us knocked doors and voted for you because of your support for collective bargaining. Y'all are good at talking the talk.

[03:21:52] Start walking the walk. LCPS will never outperform its educators. Thank you. Andrea Weiskopf. I am out of fancy words and turns of phrase.

[03:22:17] As I review my comments from the last six or seven years, there is one constant refrain. Each and every child belongs here in LCPS. In this week of Passover, it is fitting to remember the words.

[03:22:36] of rabbi hillel if i am only for myself what am i if not now when i ask you what are you why not now this is the moment to define yourself by affirming each and every child our lesbian gay bisexual

[03:23:05] transgender and queer students must be respected and protected black lives matter thank you thank you all for coming out today and providing your public comment and that will conclude public comment for today we have a lot of action items to go through today so i'm just going to keep on going we will now move on to our action items starting with 12.01 from the curriculum and

[03:23:41] instruction committee approval of the lcps gifted plan presented by school board member miss lauren Chernoff. Before I entertain a motion, Ms. Chernoff, do you want to give us a brief overview? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Prior to being submitted to the VDOE, a division's gifted plan must be supported by not only the gifted education advisory committee, but also approved by the division's full school board. GEAC, not full school board, a vote by the school board. GEAC approved the plan on November 27, 2023, then it went to the curriculum, and my computer just died, The Curriculum and Instruction Committee forwarded the plan, went to the Curriculum and Instruction

[03:24:18] Committee, and then it was forwarded to the full school board on April 9th. It was an information item, and tonight we bring it to you as action. Thank you, Ms. Shurnoff. Is there a motion regarding the gifted plan? I move that the Loudoun County School Board approve the LCPS 24 through 2029 local plan for the education of the gifted. I have a motion by Ms. Shurnoff. Do I have a second?

[03:24:43] i have a second by ms chandler it's been properly moved and seconded that the loudon county school board review and approve the lcps or just approve sorry the lcps 2024 and 2029 local plan for the education of the gifted is there any discussion thank you madam chair while i appreciated the presentation provided by the gifted services at the last school board meeting however i was a little surprised by the focus on the effort to increase access to the gifted services up to gifted services for the students from populations historically underrepresented. This gets into a

[03:25:22] tricky territory that can have opposite effect and instead result in several unintended consequences. To begin, there may be reverse discrimination. With the express goal of finding the underrepresented, there may be students that are denied access because they fall within a group that is well represented. That doesn't make sense to me. And additionally, when a child is pulled out of general education and is put in a rigorous program that they may not be prepared for, they become discouraged, overwhelmed, and even fall behind. This is troubling and problematic.

[03:25:56] Another concern is with the evaluation process. It was stated that all third grade students are evaluated for gifted services as part of the universal process. Page five on April 23rd, 2024 Gifted Plan Moving Ahead presentation. As per policy 5350, LCPS shall provide timely written notification to the parents and legal guardians of any student who undergoes literacy and other academic screening and services. We must adhere to and abide by our own policy.

[03:26:29] Parents must be given timely notification of all testing done at LCPS. As for these reasons that I vote no on the gifted plan my recommendation is to revisit the plan and to go back to the curriculum committee for further discussion and review thank you so mrs griffiths do you have an amendment or anything um i sorry i'm sure i do not have an amendment but i would like to go back to i would like it to go back to committee okay since i don't really hear a motion to go back to

[03:27:04] committee um i think we have uh it's been uh the most it's we have a motion it's been seconded so clerk would you please open the vote this is a motion to review to approve the lcps 2024 and 2029 local plan for the education of the gifted board members please record your vote clerk can

[03:27:39] you close and display the vote the vote is seven yes with mrs griffiths opposed and ms labelle absent for the vote. We'll now move on to 12.02, the Finance and Operations Committee, FY24 budget transfer for existing obligations presented by Vice Chair Arben Estreffi. Before I entertain a motion, Vice Chair Estreffi, can you brief us on this item? Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I'd like to brief us just basically give a summary of all of the Finance and Operations Committee items.

[03:28:17] You'll see items 12.02 through 12.08. There's quite a few of our F&O committee items all of these items were not able to be brought to action in committee because we were not able to meet quorum in our last committee meeting so we weren't able to meet and all of them are time-sensitive and so that's why they're bringing being brought to the full board at this time the first four just for context the first four were brought to committee on April 2nd as information items so that we entertain discussion on those items

[03:28:54] And on all four of those items, there was consensus to move them to consent in the next F&O meeting. But again, we weren't able to meet quorums, so they're being brought as action to the full board.

[03:29:10] And then the last two were supposed to be brought to the F&O committee on April 16th, but are being brought to action to the full board because of time constraints on materials and so on and so forth.

[03:29:26] So with that context, I will move directly to 12.02, a very brief summary of this item. This is, due to policy 4120, management of funds, it requires the school board to approve budget transfers for purposes other than designated when the transfer is in excess of a threshold of $100,000 between departments or $250,000 within a single department.

[03:29:54] And so what's being sought here is two items. One is seeking school board approval to transfer $590,000 to cover AP test fees. And this is due to an increase by about 20% in AP test participation, which was not expected and budgeted for.

[03:30:15] So the second item is requesting the transfer of $500,000 for additional contracted security services. And both of these two items would be sourced, the funding for this transfer would be sourced from projected fuel cost savings.

[03:30:35] So fuel costs were pre-negotiated in the previous fiscal year at a lower price. and with these projected savings, you know, this is where we would source the transfer. So these are the two items.

[03:30:51] The contracted security services, just for additional context for the board, is, you know, this year the fees are expected to go up for a variety of reasons. There were 10 less working days in the previous contract year.

[03:31:08] This year there was a 5% cost of living increase, the vendor also was able to fill a lot of the vacant jobs this year as opposed to the previous year and so these this is why we're seeing an increase in those costs so i'll stop there and i will move that the loudon county school board approved staff's recommended budget transfer of one million ninety thousand dollars from fuel savings for ap test fees and contracted security services i have a motion by vice chair straffi do i have a second i second i have a second by dr

[03:31:45] deans it's been properly moved and seconded that the loudon county school board approves staff's recommended budget transfer of one million ninety dollars one million nine hundred ninety thousand dollars for ap test fees and contracted security services is there any discussion seeing no discussion um we'll go ahead and vote clerk would you please open the vote board members would you please record your vote. Clerk, would you please close and display the vote? The motion passes

[03:32:23] unanimously with Ms. LaBelle absent for the vote. Next item is 12.03 from Finance and Operations Committee. Grant easement to the Board of Supervisors of Loudoun County, Virginia, and Loudoun County Sanitation Authority, DBA Loudoun Water at Sinklin Creek Elementary School, and it'll be presented again by Vice Chair Arben Estreffi.

[03:32:45] Madam Chair, moving on to this item, this is a request for a waterline easement requested by Loudon Water on the Cyclone Creek Elementary School property that will serve a planned new Loudon County Fire and Rescue Station No. 28 located just south of the school on Evergreen Mills Road.

[03:33:10] Again, this is another item that was discussed as an information item in committee and then was decided to be put on consent for the next meeting and is on action in this meeting. So I will move that the Loudoun County School Board approve the Board of Supervisors of Loudoun County, Virginia, the Loudoun County Sanitation Authority, DBA Loudoun Water Deed and Easement and Platt associated with the water line on Cyclone Creek Elementary School property.

[03:33:38] Further, that the chair of the school board is authorized to sign the deed of easement upon presentation. I have a motion by Vice Chair Streffi. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second by Ms. Chandler. It's been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board approve the Board of Supervisors of Loudoun County, Virginia, and Loudoun County Sanitation Authority, DBA, Loudoun Water Deed of Easement, and Platt associated with the water line on Stinklin Creek Elementary School property.

[03:34:05] Further, that the Chair of the School Board is authorized to sign the deed of easement upon presentation. Is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion. clerk will you please open the vote board members will you please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote the motion passes unanimously with ms la belle absent for the vote next we'll move on to 12.04 finance and operations committee ifb number q558787 petroleum products

[03:34:42] renewal presented by vice chair arvin estraffi thank you madam chair um hope you all are following along. We've got a few more. So this is for the renewal of petroleum products. This is an existing contract to the Valley Energy Company for petroleum products. The products include heating oil for our schools in the western part of the county and diesel fuel servicing emergency generators. I just will only add that this was also discussed as an information item in committee and was supposed to go on consent in the meeting that did not take place and it's being brought for the board. I move that the Loudoun County School Board approves renewal of RFQ

[03:35:22] 558-787 petroleum products effective May 1st, 2024 through April 30th, 2025. I have a motion by Vice Chair Struffy. Do I have a second? Second. Okay, wait. All right, I'll go. Seconded by Ms.

[03:35:40] Chernoff. It's been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board approves renewal of rfq number five five eight eight five five eight seven eight seven petroleum products effective may 1st 2024 through april 30th 2025 is there any discussion i know you are riveted by our crf and o committee seeing no discussion clerk please open the vote board members please record

[03:36:08] your vote clerk please close and display the vote motion passes unanimously with miss labelle absent for the vote. We will now move on to, I think we're at 12.05, Finance and Operations Committee, RFP, number R20252, Architectural Engineering Services for Miscellaneous Projects Renewal, presented by Vice Chair Arben Estreffi. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a renewal of an existing contract for Architectural Engineering Services related to miscellaneous school construction projects.

[03:36:44] Project scopes for task orders may include, but are not limited to, school and school support facility planning, building assessments, space planning, new construction, renovation, phased and or occupied renovation, interior fit-out, and additions. This renewal, this is for a contract that is expiring at the end of this month. Again, was discussed as an information item in committee and was decided to go on consent and now being brought to the board for action. And this renewal,

[03:37:16] The funds for this renewal will come from the construction services appropriated budget and capital improvement plan and no price increase was incurred. With that, I move that the Loudoun County School Board renews RFP R2025 to architectural engineering services for miscellaneous projects effective May 1st to 2024 through April 30th, 2025.

[03:37:40] I have a motion by Vice Chair Straffi. Do I have a second? Second. We have a second by Ms. Donahue. It's probably moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board renews RFP number R20252 Architectural Engineering Services for miscellaneous projects effective May 1st, 2024 through April 30th, 2025.

[03:38:03] Is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote.

[03:38:22] That motion passes unanimously with Ms. LaBelle absent for the vote. Okay, moving on, 12.06, Finance and Operations Committee, RFP, number R23252, Geotechnical and Construction Testing Service Renewal, presented by Vice Chair Arben Estrafi.

[03:38:41] Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a renewal for geotechnical and construction testing services for LCPS building projects throughout the year. Professional services under the resultant contract will be provided on an as-needed basis and include Phase I environmental site assessments, geotechnical and geophysical investigations and testing services, hydrogeological services, construction testing, VA-USBC, Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code special inspections, cost estimates, management and oversight of professional services, etc.

[03:39:13] Again, this is yet another renewal for a contract that would expire at the end of this month. It was brought as an information item and was supposed to go on consent in the 16th meeting that did not occur and being brought to the full board. And the funds for this award will come from Construction Services, Appropriated Budget, and Capital Improvement Plan.

[03:39:34] No price increase was incurred. With that, I will move that the Loudoun County School Board renews RFP R23252, Geotechnical and Construction Testing Services, effective May 1, 2024 through April 30, 2025.

[03:39:50] I have a motion by Vice Chair Streffi. Do I have a second? I second. Dr. Samir, I have a second by Dr. Rashid. It's been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board renews RSP number R23252, Geotechnical and Construction Testing Services, effective May 1st, 2024 through April 30th, 2025.

[03:40:11] Is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion, clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote.

[03:40:28] And that motion passes unanimously with Ms. LaBelle absent for the vote. Moving on to 12.07, Finance and Operations Committee Contract or IFB No. 24-233 LCPS Summer 2024 Room Conversions, presented by Vice Chair Arben Estreffi.

[03:40:46] Thank you, Madam Chair. This is for Summer 2024 Room Conversions. Throughout the year, our schools submit requests to support services for proposed improvements to their locations. Construction Division works with this list in coordination with teaching and learning to develop prioritized lists of spaces to renovate from this list to meet emerging teachings and staff requirements.

[03:41:06] requirements. Bids were received for this project and provide for the summer construction projects to address those programmatic needs and minimize the impact on students. This year's list will renovate 15 rooms in five high schools, Broad Run, Briar, Woods, Heritage, Loudoun County, and Loudoun Valley, one middle school, Trailside, and two elementary schools, Evergreen and Potomac. This annual project is included in the FY24 support services appropriation. With that, I move that the Loudoun County School Board approve the contract award of IFB 24-533, LCPS Summer 2024 Room Conversions Project to TMG Construction Corporation

[03:41:44] in the amount of $1,311,000, and authorizes the chair of the school board to sign the final contract documents upon presentation. I have a motion by Vice Chair Estreffi. Do I have a second? Second. Well, I heard Ms. Griffiths.

[03:42:04] I have a second by Mrs. Griffiths. It's been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board approve the contract award of IFB No. 24-5533 LCPS Summer 2024 Room Conversions Project to TMG Construction Corporation in the amount of $1,311,000 and authorizes the chair of the school board to sign the final contract documents upon presentation.

[03:42:28] Is there any discussion? Seeing none, clerk, please open the vote. Oh, board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. And that motion passes unanimously with Ms. LaBelle absent for the vote.

[03:42:51] We will now move on to 12.08 from the Finance and Operations Committee. Contract award IFB number 24-530 career and technical room renovations presented by Vice Chair Arbunistrafi. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is career and technical education CTE room reservation.

[03:43:09] So similarly, bids were received for this project and provide for the summer construction projects to address those programmatic needs related to CTE and minimize impact on students. This multi-year multi-school approved CIP project will begin with removal of casework in the career and technical education classrooms in four middle schools, Blue Ridge, JL Simpson, Seneca Ridge, and Sterling to reconfigure the learning spaces to current program needs.

[03:43:35] With that, I move that the Loudoun County School Board approve the contract award of IFB 24-530 CTE room renovations project to TMG Construction Corporation in the amount of $1,569,000 and authorizes the chair of the school board to sign the final contract documents upon presentation. I have a motion by Vice Chair Streffi. Do I have a second? I have a second by Mrs. Griffiths. It's been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board approve the contract award of IFB number 24-530 CTE room renovations project to TMG Construction Corporation in the amount of

[03:44:13] one million five hundred and sixty nine thousand dollars and authorizes the chair of the school board to sign the final contract documents upon presentation is there any discussion seeing none clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote the motion passes unanimously with miss labelle absent for the vote and i think that will

[03:44:45] conclude our fno committee meeting okay moving on to item 12.09 specialized programs and Centers Committee approval of Charter School 2024-25 calendars presented by Dr. Sumer Rashid. Thank you chair. Earlier in March the Specialized Programs and Centers Committee met to approve the Charter Schools 2024-2025 calendars and I just want to ask Dr. Ashley Ellis about any updates about it before I make a motion. Thank you Dr. Rashid. So at your last meeting there was a request

[03:45:24] for more information regarding the changes that you as a school board had just made and whether or not the charter schools were interested in making that change so upon your request we did notify both charter schools of the changes regarding Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we heard back from both of them the HCA decided to make the same change and that's reflected in the attached calendar in board docs and mccs did not make that change and that's also reflected in the attached

[03:45:58] calendar on board docs and that's all i have thank you um i would like to make a motion for approval of the charter school 2024 2025 calendars for hillsborough charter academy for both hillsborough charter academy and for yeah for mccs i have a motion by dr c do i have a second i have a second by mrs griffiths it's improperly moved and seconded that the loudon county school board approve the proposed 2024-2025 calendars for hillsboro charter academy and middleberg chart

[03:46:33] community charter school is there any discussion seeing none clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote and we have the motion passes with seven with miss chandler abstaining and miss labelle absent for the vote we will now move on to item 1210 department of teaching and learning recommendations for primary print and and digital resources for career and technical education and international baccalaureate,

[03:47:10] presented by Mr. Neal Slevin, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning. - Thank you, Chair Mansfield. We did receive three comments related to this adoption that are posted into board docs.

[03:47:28] Based on those comments, staff at this time is not recommending any changes to the recommendations. One of the pieces of feedback was related to Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens, and it proposed an alternative certification and credential for a particular course.

[03:47:44] We looked into that and while we agreed that certification is valuable, that particular certification isn't approved by the Virginia Department of Education. So we appreciate that feedback from the community. Another piece of information was about the Shelly Cashman series around Microsoft Office 365.

[03:48:02] The intent of that book is specifically on the use of databases for that course. And so the staff remains confident with that recommendation. And the last comments was about the lack of accommodations for a particular resource. And we acknowledge that there is some need for accessibility support.

[03:48:19] And we would be supporting that resource through our internal accessibility processes for the limited number of resources that did not have information about accessibility. So based on the feedback from the community, we're not recommending any changes to the recommendations and would stick with the recommendations the board received at the last board meeting.

[03:48:40] I'm happy to take any questions. - Board members, do you have any questions? - Yes, Ms. Chernoff. - Thank you for that information. I appreciate the information about the feedback. For the bit about the accessibility, I know it was specific to speaking about our English language population.

[03:48:59] Do you, when Chair Mansfield gave the direction to look into the accessibility in the first place, I guess I sort of assumed that that was for special education. was that also looked into for accessibility for English language learners across the boards that had already been considered or was this feedback that triggered that?

[03:49:21] - It would be a broad view of accessibility. The feedback from staff has to do with recognizing that teachers would likely need to add some scaffolding into the instruction and that would be a support that we would be providing on a regular basis for our EL students or our students with disabilities.

[03:49:44] - Okay, appreciate that, thank you. - Any more discussion? No, do I have a motion regarding item 1210?

[03:50:00] Okay, I can go ahead and make that motion. I move that Loudoun County Public Schools approve the recommended primary print and digital resources for CTE and International Baccalaureate. And I have a motion by Chair Mansfield. Do I have a second? - Second.

[03:50:15] second by Ms. Donoghue. It's been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County Public Schools approve the recommended primary print and digital resources for CTE and International Baccalaureate. Is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion, clerk, will you please open the vote? Board members, please record your vote and clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes with

[03:50:49] Ms. Chandler and Ms. LaBelle absent for the vote. Moving on to item 12.11 Department of Student Services Special Education Annual Plan Application Approval for 2024-25 presented by Ms. Tedra Richardson, Assistant Superintendent, and Dr. Paige Carter, Director of Special Education.

[03:51:17] Madam Chair, may I introduce the... Oh, did you want me to... May I introduce the... Oh, yes, of course. Actually it will be presented by Ms. Donahue. The annual plan for special education is designed to serve as a formal agreement and series of assurances between LCPS and the VDOE regarding the implementation of state and federal laws governing the education of students with disabilities.

[03:51:44] The application for funds serves as a source of federal funding for special education which is based upon the prior year's child count. In this instance, we're estimating that our 24-25 annual plan application will provide LCPS with a total of over $15 million in federal revenue.

[03:52:04] LCPS uses these federal funds to pay a portion of special education staff salaries and professional learning as documented in the application. The application deadline to submit the request for federal funding to the VDOE is May 15th of 2024.

[03:52:21] Staff presented the annual plan to the full board at our April 9th, 2024 meeting as an information item in the work session. And this item is now before us again with a recommendation from staff that the board approve the 2024-2025 annual plan for special education and application for federal funds.

[03:52:38] And I believe Ms. Richardson is available if there are any questions. Well, we can have a motion and then we can have discussion if we want. So, Ms. Donahue, do you want to make that motion?

[03:52:59] Yes, please, Madam Chair. I move that the school board adopt the 2023-2024 annual plan for special education and application for federal funds. I have a motion by Ms. Donahue.

[03:53:15] Do I have a second? Second. I have a second by Ms. Chandler. it's been properly moved and seconded that the loudon county school board approves the 2024-2025 annual plan for special education application for federal funds is there any discussion seeing no discussion we will now vote clerk would you please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote that motion passes unanimously with miss labelle

[03:53:49] absent for the vote we'll move on to 1212 curriculum and instruction committee revisions to policy 8310 theatrical presentations presented by school board member and chair of the curriculum and instruction committee miss lauren shirnoff thank you chair mansfield policy 8310 theatrical presentations came from the cni committee as stated last meeting it is a regulation and approval form were that were added the policy was also updated to include references to new policies adopted by

[03:54:22] LCPS and New Virginia Code that addressed obscenity and sexually explicit content to ensure appropriate parental notification as well as production approval that the production approval adhered to those policies. Following the conversation as an information item, Ms. Griffiths had an amendment that I believe she would like to discuss that you can find linked here in Board Docs.

[03:54:41] I will defer to her for that proposed change after we make a motion. Yeah, we need to make a motion first and second it and then we'll move on to amendments and then discuss it. So I'll go ahead and motion that the Loudoun County School Board approve and adopt the recommended changes to policy 8310 theatrical presentations.

[03:55:00] I have a motion by Mrs. Chernoff. Do we have a second? I have a second by Ms. Donahue. It's been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board approve and adopt recommended changes to policy 8310 theatrical presentation.

[03:55:18] Now, is there any discussion? Yes, Mrs. Griffith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to amend that proposed language to retain the language currently existing in policy 8310 in lines 7 to 9 and 27 to 29.

[03:55:33] I am not proposing to strike any language to policy 8310, but to add or amend focused on retaining language that is being proposed to be removed. I would like to keep the language that currently exists in 8310 and leave it untouched, but thus no red-lined language.

[03:55:53] Lines 7 through 9, all student theatrical presentations are of pedagogical concern of Loudoun County Public Schools and shall adhere to a basic educational mission of imparting fundamental societal values. And lines 27 to 29, theatrical productions that are deemed harmful to minors involving obscenity or advocating the commission of illegal acts or the violation of school rules or policies shall not be permitted.

[03:56:21] Disclaimers may not be used in place of observing this policy. Thank you. So we have an amendment by Mrs. Griffiths on the floor. Does she have a second? Is there a second?

[03:56:37] Second. Ms. Donahue seconds. So is there any discussion? I would just like to add, again, that I'd like to keep the language in, if we could, and not touch the policy, if that's okay.

[03:56:58] Yes. Ms. Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. respectfully i prefer the original version submitted by the committee um and i i don't believe that the i don't believe the reincorporation of the red lines is necessary is there any more discussion seeing no more discussion we will vote on the amendment as stated by mrs griffiths

[03:57:36] do we need a recap yes mrs griffiths would you mind rereading your amendment please I move to amend that proposed language to retain the language currently existing in Policy 80-10 in Lines 7-9 and 27-29.

[03:57:56] I am not proposing to strike or add language to Policy 83-10, but rather to amend focused on retaining language that is being proposed to be removed. I would like to keep the language that currently exists in Policy 83-10 and leave it untouched, thus no red line language.

[03:58:13] language. Lines 7 through 9, all student theatrical presentations are of pedagogical concern. Loudoun County Public Schools and shall adhere to a basic educational mission of imparting fundamental and societal values. In 27 through 29, theatrical productions that are deemed harmful to minors involving obscenity or advocating the commission of illegal acts or the violation of school rules or policies shall not be permitted. Disclaimers may not be used in place of observing.

[03:58:43] policy. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Griffiths. Okay, so we are now voting on the amendment that Mrs. Griffiths just so nicely restated again. Okay, so clerk, will you please open the vote? Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote, and that motion does not pass with Mrs. Griffiths for the motion, and Ms. LaBelle not present

[03:59:23] for the vote um we will now vote on the original motion that the loudon county school board approve and adopt recommended changes to policy 8310 theatrical presentation this is the original clerk will you please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote wait wait wait wait i think our voters need new batteries i think they're tired

[04:00:10] and that motion passes with six to two vice chair astrophies can we go ahead and restate that can we redo the vote can you clear the board and redo the vote for the base motion again please clerk

[04:00:42] please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote The motion passes 7-1 with Mrs. Griffiths opposed and Ms. LaBelle absent for the vote.

[04:01:06] We will move on to 12-13, Human Resources and Talent Development Committee, Revision 2, Policy 73-18, Separation of Staff Members presented by the Chair, Mrs. Dina Griffiths.

[04:01:22] Thank you, Madam Chair. A revision to school board policy 7318, separation of staff members, was brought before the board on April 9th at an April 9th meeting as an information item. The board requested that the draft regulation accompanying this policy be brought back with the policy as an action item at tonight's meeting.

[04:01:41] Both the revised policy and draft regulation are included in board docs. Ms. Bolin, would you like to speak to it? Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Griffiths. So just as a reminder for the board, the revisions to this policy were, had the goal in mind to simplify and clarify the separation process.

[04:02:04] To do so, the old policy was struck and a new policy was written along with a new regulation to address the procedural items of the policy. The new policy focuses on three main types of separations for employees, retirement, resignation, and dismissals, and defines each and outlines the procedures in which a staff member can separate from employment.

[04:02:31] Throughout the revised policy, links and references were incorporated to clearly guide staff to other applicable policies and regulations so the information is easily accessible. The new policy brought forward tonight also mirrors the SBA guidelines and other Region 4 divisions.

[04:02:51] The regulation that accompanies the policy outlines the specific requirements and timelines for separations, as well as what occurs in the event a resignation is denied. And again, this is a draft regulation that is brought forth, so it is not yet finalized.

[04:03:07] Yes, ma'am. Do I have a motion for item 1213? Thank you, Madam Chair. I motion, as chair of the HRTD committee, I motion to pass 73-18 separation of staff members.

[04:03:32] I'm sorry, and accept the revisions. Thank you. I have a motion by, I guess it would be Mrs. Griffiths. Do I have a second?

[04:03:47] Second. I have a second by Ms. Chandler. It's been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board accept the revisions to policy 73-18 separation of staff members. Is there any discussion? Yes, Ms. Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[04:04:03] I wanted to briefly ask Ms. Boland to repeat some conversation that she and I had yesterday because I was, frankly, a little bit confused with this policy seeing as the provision which deals with what will happen if the superintendent does not accept a resignation because I had some questions in my mind of what does that mean because we can't force someone to come into work.

[04:04:33] And I found my conversation with Ms. Bullen to be very helpful. Thank you, Mrs. Donahue. So, yes, essentially the denial of a resignation does not mean, does not really have much to do with the employee coming to work.

[04:04:48] It really has to do with how the item is coded on the back end. So there are two, there are usually two areas in which the potential is there for a resignation to be denied.

[04:05:04] If the behavior of an employee is so egregious that we would rather recommend a termination and go through a full termination rather than accept a resignation, a resignation will more than likely be denied.

[04:05:20] And in that case, odds are the employee is already on administrative leave and not working anyway. But we would want it to be coded in the back end as a termination for any future reference when we reviewed that employee.

[04:05:36] The other way, which is rarely done and is kind of mapped out in the regulation, is in the event a teacher who has signed a continuing contract attempts to leave prior to the conclusion of their contract and is not going into an acceptable exception, a promotional opportunity or relocating.

[04:05:59] There are areas of exception. We rarely deny the ability to resign, but we do have that as an option. Thank you, Ms. Bullen. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, Ms. Chernoff.

[04:06:16] I just wanted to thank you for bringing this to us before we came for action. I know sometimes that we discussed last time that might not always be the policy, and I know it's in draft form, but I can speak for myself that I think sometimes the regulation is, it kind of decodes the policy, you will and puts sort of the steps in place to make sense so i really appreciate seeing this before i vote on the policy and i know that was you know expedited work on your part so it is noticed and appreciated and i just want to say thank you any more discussion no okay so i'll go ahead and restate that this is a motion that the loudon county school board accept the revisions to

[04:06:57] policy 73 18 separation of staff members so clerk would you please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote that motion passes unanimously now that was a lot of action items to go through nice job we'll move on to our information items we will move on to item 13.01 department of business and financial services fy 24 third quarter financial

[04:07:35] review and covid funds update presented by miss sharon willoughby chief financial chief financial officer. Ms. Willoughby. Good evening. I am here to present the third quarter financial review for

[04:08:05] FY24. I have a presentation that I am waiting to appear. Mr. Smith can you can you jump in we have a little technical difficulty here. While they work that out I can just share that the third quarter review that I'm about to share is going to be for the school operating fund the school Nutrition Fund and the Self-Insurance Funds. This third quarter financial review for FY24

[04:08:40] is going to capture the financial activity for July 1, 2023 through March 31, 2024, and will also provide a projection for the remainder of the fiscal year, so April 1 through June 30. Nine months of actual data are included for the third quarter, and trends are evident as the year begins to wrap up. Staff continues collaboration across departments to identify any unexpected unbudgeted expenses for FY24 and to include them in the projections. Similar

[04:09:15] to the second quarter review, my presentation this evening will focus on the highlights of the projection with the full report available in board docs. And actually a copy of the presentation is also available in board docs. In the full report, there is a narrative supporting each fund's projection accompanied with that fund's financial forecast. The financial forecast presents revenues and expenditures by their various categories. You will see columns that show the FY24 revised budget, then a column for the FY24 actual amount as of March 31st. For expenses, you'll also see

[04:09:54] any FY24 encumbrances will be shown, and then an updated FY24 balance with percentage shown for either a percentage of revenue received to date or a percentage of expenditures spent to date. Then there are three columns for the projection.

[04:10:12] There will be projected revenue or expenditures are shown, an updated projected year in total, and finally projected balance showing surplus or shortage in revenues and either an under or over in expenditures. On the bottom of each forecast, the fund balance calculation will be shown.

[04:10:32] Now that I've oriented you to the report, I can start with the school operating fund. And so I will just continue on. Again, the presentation with the highlights are included in board docs. For the school operating fund for the third quarter financial review, our state revenues have been revised from the second quarter based on updated sales tax projections that are more favorable based on the strength of sales tax distributions.

[04:11:02] This third quarter projection projects a shortfall of $6.8 million compared to the $9 million shortfall that we have projected in the second quarter. So we have seen some positive change there. We are also projecting an increase to our other revenue streams, such as tuition fees and our AP test fees.

[04:11:21] These are examples of areas that are experiencing significant year-over-year increases and that we will continue to monitor through the end of the fiscal year. Personnel costs are projected to be under budget by 2.3% due to continued high vacancy rates.

[04:11:39] This surplus is impacted, though, from higher sub-usage with this area still projected to be over budget. Overall, our operations and maintenance accounts are projecting a surplus of about $3.6 million across the division with savings primarily from utilities and materials and supplies.

[04:11:59] Finally, we have a $10.1 million transfer out of the school operating fund to the health self-insurance fund that is also included in this projection, and I will present more detail on this whenever I get to the health self-insurance fund portion.

[04:12:14] The ending fund balance of the school operating fund is projected to be $20.6 million after the transfer of $10.1 million to the health self-insurance fund and deducting the FY25 budget carryover of $12 million.

[04:12:30] The projected ending fund balance represents 1.2% of the FY24 budget, and this would be the amount returned to the county per Virginia code. Our target is to return no more than 1% of the operating budget to provide the school board flexibility in allocating year-end funding for additional needed items.

[04:12:52] So with us having a fund balance that currently is at 1.2, we're a little bit over our target of not exceeding 1% returning back. After this information item, I will have another information item targeting the year-end fund balance and staff recommended usage.

[04:13:13] Moving on to the school nutrition fund, approximately two-thirds of funding is derived from cafeteria sales, with one-third coming from the federal USDA National School Lunch Program in support of breakfast and lunch meals for students. We continue to see year-over-year increases in mill participation rates, but are still under our budget revenues for this year.

[04:13:36] Helping to offset this shortfall, though, LCPS was unexpectedly provided another allotment by the state of $1.6 million in federal supply chain assistance funding. Expenses in this fund remain consistent with second quarter projections, and the fund balance is projected to be $22.4 million, with a drawdown of the fund balance of $9.9 million.

[04:14:00] Most of the drawdown, though, is associated with capital expenditures associated with an approved VDOE spend-down plan that utilizes funds in the beginning fund balance. The USDA caps this fund's balance at three months of expenditures, and if the fund balance exceeds this three-month cap, school divisions are required to submit a spend-down plan to VDOE for their approval.

[04:14:23] The spend-down plan is a request to utilize excess federal funds for capital expenditures and may span multiple years. Since our projected ending FY24 fund balance exceeds the three-month calculations, we would expect to submit a spend-down plan to VDOE for their approval.

[04:14:42] Moving on to the self-insurance funds. The first is the workers' comp self-insurance fund. The operating fund transfers into this fund will cover the employee workers' compensation claims, third-party administrator fees, and related program costs.

[04:15:01] are under budget, but this is an area that can fluctuate easily. The fund balance, though, is also projected to meet our two-month minimum reserve. Our short-term disability self-insurance fund also receives a transfer from the operating fund to cover employees' earnings throughout any period of disability resulting from a non-work injury or illness. Short-term disability benefits are for employees participating in the Virginia Retirement System Plan 1 or Plan 2 retirement programs. Claims are pretty much on target with the budget and the fund balance meeting the two

[04:15:36] month minimum reserve. We also have our Virginia local disability self-insurance fund program. The operating fund also provides funding to the short-term disability or to this VLDP fund to cover employees' earnings also related to a non-work injury. However, these are benefits for employees that are participating in the Virginia hybrid retirement system.

[04:16:03] Similar to the short-term disability fund, the claims are also on target with the fund balance meeting to two-month minimum reserve. As always, we will continue to monitor activity in these funds. Finally, our last fund to cover is our health self-insurance fund.

[04:16:23] We are seeing health and prescription rebates as revenue or revenue streams into this fund coming in above budget, but overall revenues are still down. driven by lower premium contributions caused by vacancy rates. Our expenses in this fund are forecasted to exceed the budget by 9.7 million dollars and is driven by increased claims cost and contractual services. Contractual services is a significant driver from the increase in our stop-loss coverage

[04:16:57] that caps LCPS's payments. This is basically our insurance policy to our our self-insured program. The cap for the stop loss is $600,000 per claim. The premium for this expanded policy increased. However, our analysis shows that the coverage that we would receive is necessary to help control our out-of-pocket claims costs. Claims, though, have increased again in this projection. At the beginning of the year, we thought some of our trend lines might calm down a bit, but that has not occurred, and we have revised our projections accordingly. Overall,

[04:17:36] We are seeing more claims in general, and that combined with continued increases in the cost of care brings us to our projected spend of $247 million in claims. Specifically, we're seeing more claims associated with outpatient, non-catastrophic services, and we're also seeing higher numbers of mental health-related claims.

[04:18:00] We are including in this projection recognizing the $10.1 million transfer from the school operating fund that I mentioned earlier. This is to strengthen the fund and is also allowed per the county appropriations resolution.

[04:18:16] And dropped in on the slide and the board docs, I'll just read the language from the county's appropriation resolution. It specifically states that after the close of fiscal 24, Loudoun County Public Schools is authorized to transfer unexpended and unencumbered funds to the LCPS self-insurance fund in amount of up to 10% of fiscal year 2024's self-insurance claims should the combined amount of self-insurance fund balance, including reserves in that fund, fall below 10% of fiscal 2024's

[04:18:50] claims. Based on our projection, before the $10.1 million transfer would have been made, our fund balance in this fund would have been sitting at 5%. So we are below that 10% threshold.

[04:19:06] 5% also is, that's a low number. You know, we're really getting down to the bottom of this fund, which is concerning. So as a result, the $10.1 million is transferred into this fund. That brings the fund balance now to 9%.

[04:19:23] And again, we'll strengthen the financial health of the fund. Without this transfer, we would have a stressor for FY25. There we go. Thank you. for FY25, as well as heading into FY26 in developing that budget. I'll also just as a reminder that the FY25 budget includes an 8% premium increase that will go into effect January 1st, 2025. With the claims that we're experiencing this year, the transfer is expected to help strengthen or shore up the fund. As we move into developing the FY26 budget, we hope that claims

[04:20:01] may settle a bit, and with the shoring up of the fund that the next premium increase won't be substantially more than 8%. Again, this is a fund that we will continue to monitor, especially this fall as we move into developing the FY26 budget.

[04:20:17] We are also excited to have a new consultant on board to assist us with the very complex analysis that occurs, and to provide more information on the ins and outs of this very large financial operation. Sherry, could you go back one slide for me?

[04:20:47] Thank you. Finally, the last two slides is our continued update on our COVID funds. So similar to the second quarter, we still have three active funds that we're totaling $19 million. Next slide, please. Those continue to be these three awards that we're targeting very specific types of activities with expirations coming up this fall and this winter.

[04:21:16] We are on track to have these fully expended by the time that these awards expire. And then we can conclude with the ongoing updates with our COVID funds. With that, that concludes my presentation on the third quarter, and I'd be happy to take any questions.

[04:21:36] School members, do you have any questions? Yes, Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you, Ms. Willoughby. Did you say there's a surplus of over $20 million? Can you clarify that? In the school operating fund, we are projecting the balance of being $20.6 million.

[04:21:58] And this would be for one-time purchases? That would be one option, and that would be something that I could really address in the next information item more specifically.

[04:22:15] So not to get ahead of myself, I don't know if there's any other questions related to the third quarter projection or... Ms. Chernoff. I just had a question about the COVID funds. I know, I believe a lot of the things that we already had have expired.

[04:22:33] You said that, right? These are just the three remaining. Is there a process for evaluating the impact of those funds and whether or not they're worth keeping in the operating budget? Did you speak to that? Is there, I'm just wondering, like, the last one with the ESSER funds, it's, you know, supplemental pay for curriculum and resource alignment and literacy kits.

[04:22:55] That sounds pretty great, but it's going away at the end of September. So I just didn't know if we thought that those things were effective and useful, that we were using COVID funds. Are those things just going away, or is there an ability to evaluate whether that was worth having as a potential line item in an operating budget?

[04:23:14] That's a really good question, and I think I could probably take that down in terms of to gather information whether or not there were associated items in the FY25 budget related to some of the activities beyond just the three that you were seeing here, but also perhaps some of the other 22 awards that we have already fully spent what translated over into the operating budget because I know that there were some examples but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

[04:23:42] I don't blame you. It's a big document. I appreciate that. I would really appreciate looking at that and just seeing as we're going to make the decisions about the operating budget for next year. If any of those things really have value, it would be good to know what we'll be losing if we do not put that in our operating budget thank you any other questions seeing no more questions we can now move on to the next item 13.02 department of business and financial services

[04:24:13] year-end budget transfer requests by miss sharon willoughby thank you i'm not sure the clicker is working sherry can you project or proceed to the next slide please so you um have heard me say you know probably many times that the budget is an estimate and so as we move through a fiscal year

[04:24:48] There can be surpluses and shortfalls in compliance with the Virginia code and financial best practice We will not overrun the school operating fund budget and will always have a surplus The surplus is also known as our year-end funds and are the allocated But undesignated and unspent funds projected to be available at the end of the fiscal year It's a common practice among governmental entities to repurpose allocated Undesignated unspent funds for other identified needs historically LCPS has done just that. Because these funds are only available once, the best practice is to align

[04:25:27] these one-time funds for one-time uses. Eligible items are single purchases with no recurring costs and that can also be encumbered before June 30th, 2024, in line with our procurement policies and requirements. LCPS has historically utilized its fund balance to fund needed items and to relieve pressure on the upcoming budget process for example if a purchase can be made earlier the item may not go into the budget request for the upcoming year during the FY25 budget adoption we had two examples of this the school board

[04:26:04] approved two items moving the math bridges in teaching and learning and learning language with AAC and student services out of the FY25 budget request and into FY24 year-end funds and this was part of the base motion that started the adoption process i'll also share that the county has a similar process however their process occurs after the fiscal year has closed and is also open to lcps to submit requests from the county's fund balance so this fall we do have the opportunity to request one-time purchases

[04:26:40] from the county as well for their consideration and they typically take action on that I think in November December timeframe next slide please this is an example of the report from the third quarter financial review that was in board docs and again you can see on the bottom right in the small font but 20.6 million was our projected fund balance if no further action occurred and this was the final fund balance once FY 24 was officially closed this is the amount that would return to the county as you will see though staff would like to use 10.6 million of

[04:27:18] this for one-time purchases that I have outlined on the following slide. So on this slide, you will see the beginning of the list. So we have $1.5 million associated in the Department of Digital Innovation for school-based device replacements for students and staff. We also have $3.4 million for student services for the Teach Town software, and there's a short description there of what that is related for. In the business financial services department we have $450,000 allocated for a

[04:27:57] procurement disparity study and this is something that we are looking to do jointly with the county and this would be in support of policy 4360 that LCPS has related to small women-owned and service disabled veteran-owned businesses also known as our SWAM policy. In human resources and talent development, we have $580,000 allocated for a comprehensive compensation study that would be looking at salaries and benefits and also look at the regional market analysis. Next slide,

[04:28:32] please. On the next couple of lines in support services, we have a million dollars allocated for fine art storage for each high school. There's a little over $300,000 allocated for upgrade of our smart card badging system or components related to it. There's also $269,000 related to upgrading HVAC controls in some of our schools. What's listed as a support services item

[04:29:05] is actually a digital innovation item for item eight, and that's $275,000 to replace five failed stadium sound systems at the five high schools identified with also a priority of beginning an official replacement cycle when we develop the FY26 budget. Returning to support services there's $200,000 allocated to bring on board a transportation consultant to perform a comprehensive study. We're looking at the bus routing and this is in relation to looking at the school start times

[04:29:41] And then rounding off the list is for the Department of Teaching and Learning, $1 million associated to textbooks related to IV and math, and then $1.6 million to further expand the BRIDGES intervention kits.

[04:29:57] This brings the total ask of the $10,607,020, and my colleagues here are prepared to answer any more specific questions beyond what the short description has up above. Should the school board approve this list, this would bring the fund balance to $10 million to the county.

[04:30:18] So this would be below our target of not having more than 1%. I'll also share the philosophy behind where we came up with the 1% of not returning more than 1% was to provide some consistency on the school side as well as on the county side for their preparation.

[04:30:35] If you look at the history of the fund balance returns to the county, it wildly swung from year to year. One year, it could be $15 million return. The following year, it could be less than a million. The following year after that, it could swing back up to like $12 million.

[04:30:53] And it was just wildly fluctuating. So to assist with the county's planning as well as they're trying to look ahead in their planning is where we came up with the practice, the internal practice of not having more than 1% of the budget return.

[04:31:10] and that kind of met I think you know roughly I think they've been unofficially looking at a return of about 10 million and so that also helped guide us with looking at our priorities for the year-end list next slide please so next steps would include that as this is an information item that this would come back to the school board at the next meeting on May 14th for action we try to strategically planned the year-end to wait long enough so that we have greater confidence in what

[04:31:47] our year-end fund balance is going to be, but also early enough knowing that we have to execute purchases before June 30th. And so depending on what that item may be and recognizing what a procurement process could be, that it could take some time, it's always this very fine balance of trying to hit that spot that we get close enough to year end but early enough that we can make these purchases in Cumber before June 30th. As always, we will continue to monitor the financials

[04:32:25] and the projections as we round out closing out the fiscal year. And then once we do officially close out FY24, later this calendar year, we would bring the annual comprehensive financial report once the annual audit is complete.

[04:32:42] And so that is the update on the year-end fund balance, and hopefully that was able to answer your questions, Mrs. Griffiths. And if not, I'm here to take any additional questions. Were any of these mandated by the government, in particular the procurement disparity study?

[04:33:07] Can you tell me why we need that? Was that mandated, any of these mandated by the government? I guess I would define government. If you could provide clarity, because the school board's government, well, regardless of the definition, this is opportunity for the staff as well as the school board to bring up additional priorities that may be identified.

[04:33:32] I don't know if I would categorize any of these as mandates. In terms of the SWAM policy, LCPS does have the SWAM policy and the pass direction from the school board as we have moved forward with that policy was a multi-phase approach in terms of establishing a policy, gathering data to then determine next steps of whether or not we wanted what our options could be in terms of affording SWAM eligible businesses

[04:34:05] additional priority or ability to compete on some of the contracts that LCPS offers in the same vein that the state does and so our current SWAM process piggybacks off of the state procurement SWAM practice and so we're just following that and then finally in terms of the county because the county is also looking at a similar endeavor we saw this as an opportunity to join forces and do a comprehensive study collectively and so that's what we were looking

[04:34:41] at doing. And this is part of the surplus, the one-time purchases. Yes. Did we go to the Board of Supervisors and ask for $10 million in addition? This was tagged at the end, so I'm just curious.

[04:34:58] No. So this is part of the appropriated or allocated funds that is already allocated to the school board and is at your discretion and under your supervision. So because these are already allocated to the school division, but now they're undesignated and unspent, that's why I use all those words to help define what we're talking about, that these become available to where we can repurpose for additional priorities.

[04:35:30] Yes, Dr. Spence. So just a little additional context, because this is new for you all. This is a normal part of every year's budget process. You get to the end of the year, and you're always going to have, we generally in government accounting try to keep something like 2% in the budget at the end of the year.

[04:35:50] You don't want to go to zero because you can't anticipate what might happen between here and June 30. If you're getting to zero, you may go into the red. And we don't want to be in that position. We can't be in that position. So typically you'll see a year-end balance of about 2%.

[04:36:07] And then as Sharon's been explaining, our aim would be to give about 1%. It's called a reversion. We would revert 1% back to the county. They anticipate that as they're thinking about their spend. And then we would, whatever else is in there, we would want to allocate to one-time spends because it has to come out of this year's budget.

[04:36:25] It can't be part of next year's spend. I hope that helps. Thank you, Dr. Spence. I do have some wants of my own, for lack of a better word, like inclusive playgrounds and fencing the playgrounds that we've heard from the special education community for the students that do elope um putting fencing around current playgrounds so they can go outside and they're not contained to the little the little inside courtyards that can get muddy with the rain

[04:37:05] and so and I know these are one-time funds and this would be a one-time thing um that I wanted to how would we go about exchanging things or finding out how much that would cost so that we could. And I would ask Mr. Lewis to take that question. Thank you, Ms. Willoughby. So when it comes to the inclusive playgrounds, we have a pretty extensive program designed just to do that

[04:37:39] and a school board policy directing us to put those in. And so those are managed in the cap, this capital asset preservation part of the CIP, and we have a whole list of those. And they're evaluated. Each playground is replaced as it reaches the end of its life, and then we replace that with inclusive playgrounds as far as this particular effort is we would not have time to design and write a purchase order between now and in the end of the year to do a full playground that's that's a pretty extensive project and we spend a year planning those to get those to that point regarding the fence I would like to have a little bit more discussion about that I'm not sure

[04:38:17] everyone's in agreement that that's the right thing to do around the playground um so we could um but those are very small small projects i think relatively speaking so i think that's something we should talk a little bit more through from an operational perspective i think the other thing that i'm looking into are the adult learning labs living learning labs yes and we have a plan put together for that if you recall right before you all came on board the uh the previous school board the took action to approve last year's cip and in that motion they directed us to have a plan put together for next year's CIP for those inclusive uh those classrooms and so

[04:38:57] that is that work is underway right now we're working with Ms. Richardson and her staff on putting those together and so the first step we're doing an entire inventory of the county what we have what we need and then that conversation is planned to be a part of the CIP project this fall as well. So what about those courtyards that are not really completely appropriate for the self-contained classes not sure that's my area to to answer well they wanted playgrounds and

[04:39:32] plan and things like that in them to redo them are you asking if about putting playgrounds in the courtyards now or replacing the ones that are there i'm not sure i'm understanding your question i think there were a couple different asks from um seac and i can get back to you with those but one of them was either fencing the uh existing playgrounds that are outside that the students could go outside that could potentially elope, or a lot of them have put

[04:40:10] together these, in the court, inside the courtyards, a play area that's not necessarily appropriate, and it gets muddy a lot. I hear this all the time. I can't tell you how many emails I get about the muddy courtyards that their kids can't go play in, and so I'm thinking, once your funds, this might be something to look into.

[04:40:33] I hear what you're saying about the cap, but I'm just wondering if that's cap. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I think that you're going to run into the same problem there in terms of the use of these funds, which is we would not be able to plan, design, and execute a contract for that prior to June 30.

[04:40:52] And we have to be able to spend these prior to June 30. But if it's a conversation we probably do need to dive a little bit more deeply into, that can also be part of the capital improvement plan discussion that will take place in the fall. maybe we need to have more conversations about this um anybody else you have questions go ahead I just wanted to piggyback sort of on some clarification I sort of feel like back in deja vu land um in terms of just it being all new and trying to figure this out is there a list somewhere of general things that are recommended for one use funds that we could possibly have

[04:41:28] access to or that could be provided for us just so that we know what's within bounds um I know Like I have a couple ideas too, but I'm happy to pass those along and inquire about that But I don't know where the appropriate time and place for that is if it's going to go to action by our next school board meeting So I don't know in terms of the timeline if there is a better time I mean with the budget we had work sessions So we had opportunities to really work through all of this and you know this being our first go I think we're probably gonna have some ideas. So it would be helpful if we could get some guidance from you all and

[04:42:04] Dr. Spence, too, in terms of your experience of how we could put our ideas on the table, if they are things that can be done, and if not, then how we go about pursuing that conversation for next year's operating budget. I would recommend, if you have ideas, of sending those to me, ASAP. In terms of what the process would look like then from SAF's perspective, is I would take those requests and consult with my colleagues to ensure that there aren't any other considerations that we need to take into account.

[04:42:40] Then, if there aren't there at that level, then it's really looking at, okay, is this feasible to be accomplished by June 30th? And that really is usually a very significant item. In terms of the eligibility, just kind of circling back, I'll give an example perhaps just to kind of help what I also mean by single purchase without reoccurring costs.

[04:43:03] The example that comes to my mind most easily would be if you had an idea of a software purchase. So perhaps to purchase the software could be easy enough, let's say before June 30th and it was $250,000, but if that software came with ongoing $100,000 annual subscription fees, that's where we don't have a funding source for that.

[04:43:27] so that's why we really do try to look for those singular items that's why you also don't see on here anything related to compensation so we wouldn't have for example awarding a one percent pay increase because while that would happen like that could be executed this year that impacts next year's budget that we have not budgeted for an additional one percent increase in salaries so there's that that trickle effect so so when each year at the division level when we're put the call

[04:44:01] out to departments of okay it's time to submit your wish list we are really looking at those items that are feasible that we think would you know help you know hopefully impact a wide variety of areas and I think that is what you kind of see on this list once so then circling back to the So I said, one, you know, step one, looking in terms of is there any other considerations?

[04:44:27] Two, is it feasible to be accomplished by June 30th? If not, then it's either then perhaps a redirection in terms of is it to be redirected for the fall CIP conversation? Is it to be redirected to the fall for the operating budget discussion?

[04:44:42] Or perhaps is it something to be put in our pocket to add on to a list if LCPSO desire to submit a year-end funding request from the county? So that would be another option as well. So there's definitely other paths moving forward.

[04:45:00] It's just that with year-end funds, we are very limited with time. So would there be another time for us to socialize amongst ourselves those things that we are interested in? Because ultimately, when we decide as a board what the year-end funds are, is that something that can be done or that anyone else is interested in?

[04:45:26] I just feel like if we did action on the 14th, it's just going to be a bunch of people throwing different things in. And then it's going to be like you're bored again, where it's like in the moment you're trying to change things. And that just doesn't seem like the best way to move forward if we're saying we have ideas.

[04:45:43] I'm certainly interested in having a conversation. I have a lot of ideas. Do you want to hear them right now, or do you want to have a further discussion at a later date? No, I think I want to know if there is interest in having a place to socialize some of these conversations about year-end funds without, you know, if we had a quorum doing that, that would be problematic.

[04:46:06] So trying to figure out, negotiating that between now and May 14th, because it sounds like bumping it another two weeks could be problematic. And if I may say, this is the taxpayers' money, and I'm feeling a lot of pressure now because we only have a small amount of time to use it.

[04:46:25] And I have to tell you, I'm not a fan of what you provided. I'd like that money to go somewhere else. This is taxpayer money. I may even, you know, put it out there to my constituents to ask them, you know, what their thoughts are.

[04:46:41] I've already brought up theater lighting, working on the theaters, giving them more storage. I talked to Dr. Slevin today about CTE expansion. I think there's a lot of places that money can go rather than what you provided today.

[04:47:01] Ms. Chandler. You know, I do appreciate your point, Mrs. Griffiths, and would like to call out and commend some of the items on the list.

[04:47:17] I noticed that you heard our constituents who came to public comment and asked for more storage for theater departments. I think that's great. and I really appreciate that you included the transportation study because that shows that you heard from our constituents and also from the board in terms of what our priorities were.

[04:47:37] So thank you for that. Yes, Vice Chair Strafi. So I'll just, from my perspective, I think that, you know, from what I'm seeing from some of these items, I'm trying to look at this from an equity perspective as well.

[04:47:56] It seems like we're solving for some of the gaps across schools. So what I wouldn't want to see is us picking and choosing initiatives to kind of throw money at, regardless of whether those are valuable or not, and just looking at this holistically. And it seems, just based on what I've seen right now, that we are really trying to, when we're trying to solve a problem, we're trying to do it across the division, or we're trying to, so smart cars badging, upgrading the security, same thing with the external storage for high schools, the failed stadium sound systems, right?

[04:48:28] There are schools that don't have broken stadium sound systems and going in and leveling everything out and making sure that we're using-- and I think that's a good use of one-time funds as well. From my perspective, I'd like some more context around the-- it doesn't have to be at this moment-- but around the compensation study.

[04:48:48] I think it was $450,000 dedicated to that. Just really curious as to what we really want to accomplish with the compensation study. And then the last thing I'll mention, and this is getting into the wish list side, but in the spirit of that, there are-- in our elementary schools, so Ms. Chernoff and I recently visited Guilford Elementary School, and I mentioned this to Dr. Smith as well.

[04:49:14] We have playgrounds for some of our older learners in elementary school. And then we have play areas for our youngest learners, our kindergarten students. And so there are some maybe inconsistencies. And some schools actually have a second playground for the youngest learners.

[04:49:30] And then in schools like Guilford Elementary, they have a paved area, a play area that is fenced in. But they have-- those students, those young learners, have direct view of that amazing playground that the older learners have access to. And then there are elementary schools that have two really nice playgrounds.

[04:49:47] And so in that conversation around equity, specifically related to play areas and structures, this be an area of using one-time funds and i know how big these projects can get but these are these are i think smaller play structures so maybe there is room to talk about this as a topic so that's my stick and i think it would be helpful and i would ask if ms bowlin could provide some information related to the compensation study and if mr lewis again could provide maybe some some information related to the playground.

[04:50:22] Thank you, Ms. Willoughby. So we have had discussions and are working with procurement in regards to a consultant, a third-party consultant, coming in to do a comprehensive compensation and benefit study across all positions and all salary scales.

[04:50:41] And this is the first time we've done this in, I would probably say, eight years. And so this would be a dynamic look across the division at a variety of areas. And one of the first things we would like to do is bring the consultant to the school board's work session or retreat on June 11th to start to work with the school board on the school board's compensation philosophy.

[04:51:06] Determining the school board's compensation philosophy will really drive the way that they work. They look at the positions, and they develop a compensation structure in regards to the way that they review the positions and the salary scales, what your priorities are, what your focuses are, and how they should move forward.

[04:51:30] The goal is to, now we will have to prioritize because compensation studies of this size can take probably a full 12 months. The hope is that with this philosophy conversation, we can prioritize pieces of that, and the goal is for that to guide the fiscal year 26 budget requests that then come forward in regards to compensation and benefits.

[04:51:59] Mrs. Griffiths, I may have asked this before, but is there any way to give the money back to the taxpayer? I'm just, you have a surplus here. I'm just curious. We return any unspent funds at year end, return to the county, and then the county either reappropriates the funds as part of their collective fund balance.

[04:52:24] They go through the same process that we're looking at right now. So they will either reprioritize or they just carry it over into the following year. So in terms of it literally going back to the taxpayer, that would be a question better suited for the Board of Supervisors.

[04:52:43] Yes, Ms. Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Willoughby, for your presentation. I was hoping to get some more information about the first item on the list, the computer refresh, and I apologize if you gave more details already and I missed it, but I was curious if this meant, I see it says school-based device replacement, but I was wondering if that meant replacing all school-based devices for student staff and workstations or devices of a certain age or are there guidelines or limitations on what this means?

[04:53:22] So thank you for the question. Our entire refresh cycle is $15 to $16 million for devices, for workspaces, teachers, students, teacher assistants, so across the board. So this is just about a 10% funding, and this has been the trend over the last several years.

[04:53:39] So when we bring our budget forward, that $1.5 million is allocated to potentially be out of end-of-year funds versus it being baked into our operating funds. And so overall, it's about a $16 million total project. And so this is just about 10% of that funding. And end-of-year funding also allows us to purchase things that, if we wait until July 1, may not come in before school starts.

[04:54:00] So this allows us to purchase some things that may have longer lead times. So it's really hard to say exactly what it's purchasing. I mean, I know that, but off the top of my head, we can get you that, what the BO would be cut for. But it really is to provide some flexibility there. So when we go to open schools, we have everything in place that we need for teachers and students.

[04:54:19] Thank you, Mr. Smith. Yes, Dr. Sheen. While we're on the topic of equity and in terms of need, I just also want to mention our charter schools.

[04:54:35] So like with HCA and MCCS, they're always in need of revamping their buildings because they're very old. So I just figured I'd just mention that on the side. So I know you guys are talking about equity. I don't want them to be forgotten, so to say.

[04:54:53] Thanks. Thank you, Dr. Sheed. Yes, Ms. Chernoff. So I'm getting the sense that there's a lot of ideas on the table. So may I ask that Chair Mansfield and maybe Vice Chair Streffi sort of hear that and maybe get back to us with some possible suggestions of how we can sort of hash this out?

[04:55:16] Madam Chair, if I may. In terms of the list that staff has provided, I am comfortable if the school board delayed action on this to the May 28th meeting because we have already vetted these in terms of our ability to meet a June 30th timeline.

[04:55:35] So the items that are already identified could be laid to the May 28th, although I wouldn't want to push any past that. I mean, that would really be kind of like a drop-dead date. To facilitate the school board having some conversation and gathering information, I would still request, though, getting that information to me as soon as possible so that at the May 14th meeting, if there wanted to be more conversation, a transparent discussion regarding school board members' ideas and priorities

[04:56:14] because what I'm hearing is lots of ideas and one, again, once we go through that list of what may actually be able to make it as a possibility for the year-end funds list, it could also be a very large dollar amount.

[04:56:31] So then it's, and then that opens up another discussion. It's not about necessarily just adding on to the list. The other thing I will just also share in terms of just transparency in the process, and Dr. Spence kind of alluded to it, is the collaboration with county staff.

[04:56:47] So I shared the philosophy of how we arrived at the no more than 1%. And so county staff is very well aware. I had shared them information about this presentation and about $10 million. I always put the caveat of however school board could absolutely make additional recommendations to bring that down further.

[04:57:08] And so the more that that, you know, if that's also where we're signaling going, then I will also you know convey that you know to to the county as well and I will just share though just in terms of politically the climate the idea of arriving at this amount of trying to have consistency was to help the relationship between the two boards because of either a perception of spending down or who owned the funds there's there's lots of thoughts

[04:57:42] circulating around this and so I've always thought that this was a fair approach in terms of still trying to meet school division needs while still returning a somewhat consistent sizable amount back to the county yeah that matters to me very much keeping that relationship intact and making sure that we're being fiscally responsible I apologize if my if I was misunderstood I'm sort of looking at a swap out I think we sort of almost got to this place with the budget cycle in January of like looking at the base budget we never actually got there but I guess I was kind of thinking of that same

[04:58:21] philosophy is just sort of looking at if there were other things that the board prioritizes that maybe we could look at looking at this list I you know I echo what Miss Chandler said I feel seen in a lot of areas you know the band storage and the theater storage as well as the transportation there's there's great things on here I just think you know with our first go it would be nice to have the conversation about other things that are on our radar which will also help prepare us for next year which i think would be beneficial at least for me okay so um as far as your question

[04:58:55] of how we can socialize this kind of thing um i think that we could i mean there's a couple of different things we could do but why don't leadership think about it and we will disseminate how to proceed um okay thank you miss willoughby so i think this will will wait until what is it

[04:59:30] the may 28th give us another week i mean another couple is that what we said may 28th well you'll need to have some discussion at your may 14th meeting around this it's probably your opportunity to socialize it if we're going to punt the action to the 28th agreed okay um we'll now move to item 13.03 one LCPS forward together entry plan update presented by dr. Spence thank you madam chair I appreciate the opportunity to present another update so

[05:00:06] just a reminder we've been regularly presenting updates all throughout the year on what's been going on with the entry plan last time we talked about how we were just updating the status of different items this is actually going be the final uh entry plan update before we um get together our retreat in june and really go through in some detail findings from from this first year here just a reminder for the board we we've focused on four goal areas of one lcps the division strategic plan and this evening's update is to to just make sure that you will continue to be aware of progress on the plan in these four

[05:00:46] areas so we're going to go through each area we'll start with area one goal one which is empowered students updates here include an acknowledgement that LCPS has completed the federal cyclical monitoring process with video II this is related to special education final port every report has been received implementation of the corrective action plan is underway and that LCPS is designated the procurement process for vendors to conduct an external audit for special education something we've talked about with the board a little bit and we'll talk about in more detail in June. Also I have continued to meet with our teacher advisory and I'm preparing for an upcoming teachers cabinet meeting as

[05:01:23] well so that is an ongoing item. Want to also talk about the curriculum audit language here. You heard Mr. Slevin and his team talk a little bit about a curriculum audit earlier tonight. We are transitioning to the next phase of the instructional framework development and that will help inform the curriculum audit need to ensure through that process that our curriculum documents and supporting resources are truly aligned to the instructional vision that's outlined in the framework and we plan to engage in this process to get recommendations for our next steps for our curriculum team as we move forward

[05:01:59] and then finally with regards to this goal we have begun in earnest the revamped school improvement process a revamped school improvement process which again I'll talk more about during the entry plan report that will present in moving on to the second goal an area of focus on exemplary staff first and foremost very happy to report that our concluded our last listening sessions with staff as of last week we held a session in every school cluster got some very helpful feedback from from our staff which again will be shared in aggregate in the post-entry plan report I have continued to visit schools and

[05:02:36] meet with our amazing principals and teachers just recently for example had I had some wonderful visits to Stuart Weller and Discovery Elementary Schools, as well as Stonebridge High School. And I just wanted to give a special shout-out to the parents at Stonebridge who invited me into their Eid celebration. They put on a fantastic breakfast for the faculty there, and I appreciate their hospitality.

[05:02:58] With regards to the item on examining talent development, as our school division continues to evolve, it's crucial that we do prioritize the growth and advancement of our staff. And to uphold the ongoing success of our division on our commitment to fostering exemplary staff, we are transitioning, as the board has been made aware, leadership development and coaching and mentoring from the Department of Teaching and Learning to the Department of Human Resources and Talent Development.

[05:03:22] That will be effective July 1, and this marks the creation of a division-wide talent development office, which will be designed to empower all staff members to know exactly where to go to unlock their full potential. Professional learning under Teaching and Learning will be renamed the Division of Professional Learning and School Supports And this new division will be made up of the offices of Professional Learning and School Supports Elementary, Professional Learning and School Supports Secondary, the Office of Instructional Design and Innovation, and the Office of Instructional Technology.

[05:03:51] We believe this reorganization will sharpen our ability to focus our professional learning and school-based support on the needs of our schools, which are being identified through the school improvement process. And also, we believe, help deepen the connection between professional learning, our instructional community receives our LCPS curriculum and the instructional framework also is of note is that we are planning to move forward with a comprehensive well as was discussed tonight we would like to move forward with a comprehensive compensation and benefits study which really the intention of which is to better assist the board and I as we engage in future conversations

[05:04:28] on the topic of conference compensation this is the largest by far the largest part of your budget and having a handle on how we compare in the market and what our salary scales look like and the appropriateness of those scales and any recommendations for changes would I think be immensely beneficial for all of us as we enter into the next budget cycle moving on to goal 3 an area of focus on enriched division we we continue to meet with the media as we're working to ensure that all the wonderful things that are happening in Loudoun County Public Schools are uplifted in the way that they should be And I'm not doing this because they're here

[05:05:06] But I do want to shout out to Evan Goodnow for his coverage recently for example of Emmerich Elementary's deeper learning showcase and to Alexis Goosen of loud and now and the folks at WSA 9 for covering our wonderful partnership breakfast Those are just the kinds of things that we're working very hard to try to make sure our community sees happening And we appreciate we appreciate the opportunity to do that And speaking of partnership breakfast, I just want to again shout out the incredible event that that was.

[05:05:35] And thank you again to those of you who came and witnessed the more than 500 people who were in attendance. And I don't know about you, but I was blown away by the heartfelt stories of partnership that we heard on Friday. And so that's just another ongoing example of how we are connecting with the community.

[05:05:54] Also of note is a communications audit conducted by the National School Public Relations Association. That is complete, and we'll be presenting on that in more detail in May and then talking about some of the recommendations coming out of that as far as our post-entry plan report. And then finally, with regards to Goal 4 in our area focused on engaged community, as noted, we did recently complete our last rounds of community listening sessions, And I was very pleased to have that opportunity to meet with our community and to hear from them directly about what they hope and aspire for our students,

[05:06:30] as well as where they think we're really knocking it out of the park and then where the opportunities for growth are for us in LCPS. I also just wanted to take a minute to thank all of those board members who took the time to attend those sessions. we appreciate that very much and and know that that feedback has been heard and is being digested and analyzed and we'll come back in the in the final report I also want to note that the blue ribbon panel on school safety and security has completed its work John Clark who's our director at school safety and security is currently seeking feedback on preliminary recommendations from that panel and we intend to present final recommendations to the

[05:07:09] board for discussion here before the end of the school year and then finally as noted earlier DCC is currently reviewing the communications audit which will be shared with the board next month and as we kind of get to the end of the reporting timeline here I will just say that the as a reminder we've been going through these updates throughout the entire school year and this will as I said before be the final update before presenting the post entry plan findings at a retreat in June. And so with that, I will stop here and see if you have any questions.

[05:07:49] Thank you, Dr. Smith. Board members, do you have any questions? Yes, Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Dr. Spence. I know we are all very much looking forward to hearing from this. Are we calling this now the post-entry plan, just for clarification? Because I've been calling it the entry plan, but now is it transitioning in June to a post-entry plan? Is that how you would like us to refer to it? So, I mean, a plan is a plan and the plan has been engaged. Right. And when we get to June, I will be presenting a post-entry plan report. Okay. With findings and recommendations

[05:08:25] and then an opportunity for us to discuss priorities as we move forward. We will have put an end to the entry plan and we will be in moving forward together. Into the next phase. Got it. I appreciate that clarification. I'm really looking forward to doing that work, to partnering with you and aligning to the strategic plan.

[05:08:44] I'm hopeful there's going to be long-term and short-term goals that outline real action steps through governance and other means to get the ball rolling on real change. When we were working towards hiring you as our new superintendent, a community survey was given, and the results were shared on March 28th of last year.

[05:09:00] I went back and just looked through the slides, you know, reflecting on where we've come in the last year as those of us have kind of become really a big part of it. And from that meeting, I wanted to compare with sort of what you had seen and what you've given in tonight's entry plan update, just to see where we are.

[05:09:19] The top concerns a year ago were student safety, teacher recruitment and retention, academic rigor, and communication. I see that from the highlights, some of these concerns still exist, but some we've seen improvements in. And I'm hopeful that this plan will work to really streamline and prioritize these areas.

[05:09:35] Additionally, last year, 56% of people surveyed said they wanted a superintendent who will take the district in a significantly different direction. With your experience now in LCPS and through your many listening sessions, I'm wondering if you still feel that this is holding true just over a year later, and if so, can we expect to see steps to accomplish that through your post-entry plan?

[05:10:01] So it's an interesting question. I mean, I think there are many opportunities for us to move forward and to do some things differently. I think I tend to approach things from a strengths-based position, so I think we start with where our strengths are and then we leverage those to continue to improve.

[05:10:20] I think we've seen a lot of really good things, you know, conversations in those community sessions about the things that people really love about Loudoun County, and I think we can leverage that to make some changes that we do need to change. I have heard about safety and security, but I will be frank with you, mostly on the positive.

[05:10:40] Loudoun County in particular the Blue Ribbon panel suggested that we run a rural-class safety and security program and I think that that's true I think that that doesn't mean there won't be recommendations coming out of ways we can continue to improve in that area and obviously I think during the budget process we also tried to put some things in place and then depending on how you think about safety and security you and I have had some discussions around student behavior and some of the concerns that come out around student behavior. And so we certainly will be addressing some of those concerns and thinking about next

[05:11:15] steps forward as we do that. Certainly as we think about high academic expectations, I think a starting point for the division is understanding what it expects to see in a classroom, and that's why we're working on an instructional framework. That instructional framework provides clarity for us so that we can then begin to align all of our work towards ensuring we're delivering on what that says. So does our professional development align to what's expected to be seen in a classroom? Do our curriculum and resources support what we expect to see happening in a classroom?

[05:11:48] Does our coaching cycle and the support that we provide to our principals and the way that they coach their teams and then the support that our, you know, facilitators and others provide to our teams and to our teachers is all of that aligned to a common understanding of what instruction ought to look like in the school division so that we're not sending 80 messages about what's important to to our staff because that's confusing and difficult to deal with all of that also then has to operate in the context of what we were talking about earlier which are sort of the insane things coming out of the state if I may just be perfectly candid to say that we're going to have new standards across two major content areas and we're going to require all of the training that's

[05:12:27] being required and we're going to try to accomplish all of that in in a single school year with our teachers I mean I think is is quite frankly disheartening to see that coming out as a kind a misunderstanding from the state level of what's doable for teachers in our classrooms and so i think we have to keep advocating together for sane and rational thinking coming out of the state so that we can actually help our teachers do what we expect them to do which is to deliver on an outstanding experience for our kids in the classroom every day so i mean your question was a significantly different direction i mean i think there are significant changes in front of

[05:13:03] us but I would also say I don't want to undermine the fact that LCPS is a really wonderful school division and I feel very fortunate to be here and I think everywhere I've gone the main message that I've heard quite frankly is hey we love our school division and we would like other people to stop picking on us and realize that we're pretty good and I think you know we can do that I think we can work together to continue to get the good messages out about what we're doing I think we can address some of the challenges if we're honest about them and we we develop a plan to address them and then i think we just understand and leverage our strengths to to make us even better you know again following the motto you all have heard me say many

[05:13:42] times which is be better tomorrow than we are today i really appreciate your thoughts thanks thank you dr spence um any other questions no okay um we'll move on to item 14 board member comments and committee reports and y'all each have three minutes starting with dr rasheed Thank you, Chairman. I mean, thank you, Chairman.

[05:14:16] The only update I have is that there is the MSAC equity event this Saturday. It's the MSAC annual equity and award ceremony this Saturday from 1 to 3. 30 at the Historic Douglas High School in Leesburg, Virginia. That was the only update I have.

[05:14:33] Thank you, Dr. Rashid. Ms. Chernoff. I'm going to try not and pull a Dr. Estreffi and run out of time. All right, here we go. Last Monday evening was our monthly LEAF meeting, Loudon Education Alliance of Families. As a school board liaison, I met with the chair, Sherry Colby, to respond to feedback given at a previous meeting about incorporating more policy work into the meeting.

[05:14:55] As a response to this, the chair and I talked with groups about how we will add a cyclical policy review component to every meeting going forward. We then reviewed policies that are currently in committee and up for vote by the full board. Lastly, we ask members to review those policies and select a top three for next meeting to do a deeper dive into each one.

[05:15:13] I'm hopeful that this change will allow for members to engage with policy and give authentic feedback. We have one meeting left this school year and are looking for new members for next school year. It's a great way to stay connected with LCPS and get your questions answered and give feedback. Every school can have a representative.

[05:15:29] Email your PTA president and principal if you are interested. I also wanted to highlight a few school visits. At Tolbert Elementary, I was able to watch their first ever fifth grade musical, Newsies. This was an idea by their music teacher, made reality with the support of admin teachers and parents. They certainly seized the day.

[05:15:46] At Simpson, I was able to view their partnership they have with County High School National Honor Society students. High schoolers come together each Thursday to tutor middle schoolers in math, and students have built relationships throughout the year, and it feels like the relationships are primary, and math is just a bonus. Big thanks to Principal Adam at Heritage High School for hosting my daughters, myself, and Dr. Ellis for the eclipse viewing.

[05:16:08] We got to see the eclipse and witness this historical event on their football field. On April 13th, Ms. Donahue and I were judges at the first ever Cake Wars at Trailside Elementary School. Several middle schools' FACTS students put together teams to bake cakes for the theme of school spirit.

[05:16:26] Congrats to Trailside Elementary for taking home their win with the lemon raspberry cake. It was a hard job, but somebody had to do it. I also want to thank Cedar Lane math resource teacher Ms. Bragg and staff and Principal Marple for inviting me to come see the Bridges Math Intervention in Action.

[05:16:42] You may remember that they presented their fabulous work at our 1LCPS Spotlight last meeting. And lastly, I found my way back home with a school visit to Guilford Elementary. Vice Chair Streffy joined me to meet Principal Tillman and staff and students and see their school day.

[05:16:57] We talked about ways we can support our Title I schools and also heard about the amazing work happening there. Just recently, their Propel team won their yearly competition. It was a wonderful reunion for me, and I got hug after hug after hug. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Chernoff.

[05:17:17] Ms. Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I'll just mention a couple of things. I was thrilled to be invited with Ms. Chernoff to judge the cake baking competition at Trailside Middle School.

[05:17:33] It was one of the more fun perks since starting this position. And I also had the opportunity to attend the business partnership breakfast on last Friday, thanks to the Loudoun Education Foundation, which was a really amazing opportunity that I was also grateful to be part of.

[05:17:54] The Student Services Committee last met last Thursday on April 18th. The next meeting will be on Thursday, May 16th at 5.30 p.m. here at the school admin building. The Joint Committee on Collective Bargaining met on last Monday, on April 15th, for our first lengthy substantive discussion of the issues that we are tasked with working through.

[05:18:21] And we will meet again on May 2nd from 12 to 4, again here at the Admin Building. We have also scheduled another subsequent meeting with the—we have reserved a time potentially with the federal mediator on May 16th.

[05:18:38] The Loudon Education Foundation's next meeting is on May 2nd at 8 a.m. And I am holding my second round of office hours this Saturday at Purcellville Library from 10 to 12. I believe all of our slots are already spoken for, but we will be putting out more sign-ups soon for additional office hours on May 18th and June 1st.

[05:19:02] And I encourage anyone who would like to talk with me, share thoughts, questions, concerns, to sign up for office hours, to call or email me. I'm available anytime. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Donohue. Vice Chair Struffy.

[05:19:19] Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll keep it brief since we just had our FNO committee meeting tonight. But I also joined my fellow board members at the business partnerships breakfast, which was amazing. I think for me, one of the things that stood out was just being able to see the longtime business partners be so attached to the LCPS community, crazy attached.

[05:19:44] So, and just, you know, having been, seeing them be a part of the community for such a long time, and even new members to the council, just seeing how excited they get when they get to do work with our school community and give back. So that was really left a mark for me. Ms. Chernoff at Guilford Elementary, which was amazing, very special school community, which you talked about. I got to see Willy Wonka Jr. at Parkview High School, which was amazing as well, and it was I think the longest my four year old had sat in one place that I've ever seen. So Frozen is coming up at

[05:20:22] Rockridge High School, as most of you probably already know, so excited about that. And Teacher Appreciation Week starts May 6th, so amazing things are happening in the Sterling District for Teacher Appreciation Week. I think we rock it better than the other districts, if I might say. So please look out, be on the Facebook pages of all the PTOs and PTSAs, and see what they're doing to make our teachers and school community feel special.

[05:20:46] Thanks. Thank you, Vice Chair Strafi. I don't have anything to report. So, Mrs. Griffiths? I do want to piggyback on the breakfast we had last Friday, which is great. Great meeting with the CTE folks about expansion of trades, of the trade programs. I had a great conversation with Dr.

[05:21:10] Slevin about that today as well. And also I joined Linda Dean's, what was it, Saturday? Saturday for the literacy event, which was really fantastic and interesting. So I don't know if Linda wants to add anything to that, but that's pretty much what I have to share today. So thank you. Thank you.

[05:21:32] Ms. Chandler. Thank you, Madam Chair. It does feel like it's been a very energetic and exciting time. There's been something to do almost every day, but I've really found myself grounded in the work that we're doing and reinvigorated by seeing all of the opportunities that are in our division, the wonderful things that we're doing. First and foremost, I'm happy to report that the Federal office review of Head Start was excellent. Our director, Alexis Duffin, said if it had been a test, they would have gotten an A+. So that indicates a strong performance and compliance with

[05:22:11] the federal program guidelines. At that meeting, we had a very exciting opportunity to participate in the annual self-assessment, and that gave parents in the Head Start program the ability to look at what their program is doing very well and where they have the opportunity to grow.

[05:22:29] And it was just wonderful to observe and hear all of the wonderful things that they are doing. I also had the opportunity, as our student representative reported, to attend the international summit opening ceremony.

[05:22:45] The speaker was a witness to the genocide in Rwanda and has continued to go back to Rwanda over the last 24, 25 years. And the stories that he told about reconciliation have been resonating with me since the opening ceremony.

[05:23:04] There's so much that we can learn from these situations. And Dr. Deans and I also had the opportunity to attend together the Chamber of Commerce Policymaker Series on the state of mental health. And it really resonated with me that it will take every member our Loudoun County community to solve that issue and and we really have some opportunities to bring synergy together and work together for the betterment of our whole community and like many of you I had the opportunity to continue on my school visits which have been wonderful I went to a school I've never been to before which is hard in Algonquian district because I have been around a

[05:23:43] while but I did get to go to Stewart Weller for the first time and loved the experienced and ran into one of my former students parents which was exciting and of course I recently got to visit Algonquian elementary which is just my heart and saw the Potomac Falls play curtains which was wonderful thank you thank you miss Chandler dr. Deans I try to visit schools every Friday to end my week on a exciting note with kids and I've been able to do that I do want to

[05:24:21] say that the the equity facilitators from the DEIA office have given their time to come every evening that we've had a meeting whether it's MSAC or the equity committee to help us facilitate and help us to move forward the the the journey of equity and so with that I would just like to thank Dr. Ellis Williams for encouraging them to to support us even though they don't have to come out at night

[05:24:58] Dr. Williams has Ellis Williams has asked them to come and they have shown up every single time and for that I'm grateful and then I want to tell everyone in this room tomorrow is administrative professional day don't forget it thank you Dr. Deans so now we'll move on to item 15 new business is there any new business for tonight seeing none we will move on to adjournment

[05:25:32] and the april 23rd 2024 meeting of the lcps school board is now adjourned thank you for your work and drive home safely

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