Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Finance & Operations Committee Meeting, Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Date: Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 54m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/943866216?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

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

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[00:00:00] hey good afternoon i call to order this may 7th 2024 loudon county school board finance and operations committee chair streffi will not be here this afternoon and i'll serve as chair in his place also as my role of chair of the loudon county school board i've appointed miss shirnoff as a committee member on a temporary basis for today's meeting and we will start with item 2.01

[00:00:29] which is public comment. Do we have any? We do. Okay. Well, we have 10 minutes overall for public comment and we have one person. Okay. So you get three minutes. Let's just do. Okay.

[00:01:04] So we have 10 minutes overall, but considering the length of our agenda, which we have a lot today, I'll allot three minutes for our single public commenter. And I will now read our script.

[00:01:22] Thank you for engaging with the school board through public comment process the school board welcomes comments from Loudoun County residents and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system speakers must limit to the time allotted and based on the number of speakers and agenda this evening all speakers have been allotted three minutes each for public comment please be advised that the speakers who missed their time slot will not be called at a later time all audience members shall maintain civility decorum and respect for the functioning and dignity of the school board at all times.

[00:01:53] times please remain seated unless arriving departing speaking at the podium or during a break violations of civility decorum and respect include shouting heckling jeering applause or other noise which disrupts or delays the meeting obstructing speakers from being able to see the school board and vice versa interrupting speakers and attempting to speak when not called to do so by the chair and approaching the speaker otherwise intimidating attempting to intimidate disparage or distract a speaker staff member or other meeting attendees speakers should refrain from vulgarity obscenities defamation profanity or other like

[00:02:29] breaches of respect nor may teach 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 that comments on an individual student or employee related matter not be shared at public meetings where where the disclosure could violate applicable confidentiality requirements.

[00:02:54] Speakers should face and direct their comments to the school board and per LCPS policy 2520, member of the school board will not answer questions or respond directly to the public during the public comment period. We look forward to hearing your comments. Would you mind stating your name first?

[00:03:10] - Good afternoon, my name is Mithil Gandhi. Thank you so much. I won't take my full three minutes, but I thought it was important today to reach out and talk about exactly what's on the screen today, school start times. I know it's an informational subject on your meeting today, but start times directly affect my family. We have one in fourth grade with a 7.30 a.m. start time, and we have another kid in seventh grade with the middle school start time. And when this started under Superintendent Ziegler, it was a big deal because they couldn't hire enough school bus drivers.

[00:03:46] we understood it we we took it in vain and we said let's move forward in reality 15 minutes to 30 minutes every single day is a big big big concern for my entire family i'll take today as an example it's my older son's birthday we want to have breakfast together i think that's important it was important for my family so my younger son went to school late now as i look towards what you all are planning on spending potentially $200,000 on consultants to look at start times,

[00:04:22] I ask that you super uber focus only on the earliest start time for the 30 or so elementary schools that are affected, which is the 7.30 a.m. start time. Trying to start a conversation with the community now, trying to flip times, trying to see what else is possible, trying to spend $200,000 of taxpayer dollars to do so is is shameful what we need to do is direct staff to see what can be done from the 7 30 a.m. start time with the 30 schools even if you can push it to 7 45 i understand pushing it to eight would require x number more of school bus drivers but maybe even half the

[00:04:59] schools can go to eight or half the schools can go to 7 45 that's where we need to spend our 200 thousand dollars if they can't do it divvy up the 200 thousand dollars to the 31 schools that are impacted with the 7.30 a.m. start time and see what they'd like to do with the monies. Maybe it's improving the car line.

[00:05:17] Maybe it's giving more teachers a bonus to open doors and to get in and out quicker. There's a lot of other ways to be using this money. And what I don't want to do is open a Pandora's box by now starting to talk about switching high school times to elementary times.

[00:05:35] Because the other concern there is all those kids that went to elementary and now we're to go to high school and now I'll automatically have an earlier time, I promise you I will have every single one of those kids in this room and at board meetings to let them know how they feel now that they've had to endure all those early start times and move back again to early start times just because they thought it was in the best interest.

[00:05:56] So I appreciate it and thank you for your service to the community. Thank you. All right. Thank you for coming out today and providing your public comment. And that will conclude our public comment for today.

[00:06:13] And we will move on to agenda item 3.01, the draft minutes for the April 2, 2024 meeting. Have the board members had time to look over those minutes? And are there any changes? No changes, but I did want to make a comment, if I may, Madam Chair.

[00:06:37] We will have new business if that's something that you want to talk about. Well, I just -- I think it's fitting to say it now. I just wanted to acknowledge that our colleague, Vice Chair Arvin Estreffi, who is not here today as he is tending to personal matters, Carrie LaBelle has also been out for several weeks.

[00:06:59] This room is equipped with video and audio and the meeting could be live streamed and recorded so that is available to all school board members, staff, as well as the public. I would love to see greater transparency and accessibility to the work that we do as a school board.

[00:07:15] Thank you. And I will also say that people did have that option and did not take it. Thank you. I will make a motion to approve the minutes. Is there a second? I second. We have a -- it's been properly moved and seconded to approve the minutes.

[00:07:35] All those in favor of approving the minutes, say "aye." Aye. All those opposed or no. It looks like it's passed unanimous. And now we'll move on to item four, the consent agenda. do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda I second the motion okay will you make a we'll need to move to approve it first I move to approve it thank you we have a motion by miss Griffiths to approve the consent agenda

[00:08:11] is there a second I second we have a second by mission off it's been properly moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda and all those in favor of approving the consent agenda say aye aye and that motion passes unanimously and we will move on to item 5 and our action items starting with 5.01 business and financial services RFP number R21268 security guard services renewal and I

[00:08:42] will now entertain a motion for RFP number R21268 I motion to approve RFP r21268 okay we have a motion for the Finance and Operation Committee to recommend that Loudoun County School Board renew RFP r21268 security guard services from July 1st 2024 through June 30th 2025 is there a second I second we have a second by Miss Griffiths and so it's been properly moved and seconded

[00:09:21] that the Finance and Operations Committee recommends the Loudoun County school board renews RFP number are two one two six eight security guard services from July 1st 2024 through June 30th 2025 is there any discussion or any questions actually to be brought up at a later date I will be going through new security measures with mr. Lewis and I am proposing a pilot program at wax pool

[00:09:54] And also, I do want to refer to the notification we got from the sheriff's office on having more SROs. So I'm not sure about the security guard services at this time, but I will second to have it go to the school board.

[00:10:15] Okay, so the motion on the floor is that the Finance and Operations Committee recommend the Loudoun County School Board renew RFP R21268 Security Guard Services from July 1st, 2024 and June 30th, 2025.

[00:10:35] That's the motion on the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. And that motion passes unanimously. May I get a thumbs up for this item to be brought up to the school board as a consent item for May 14th?

[00:10:52] there's yes or no no okay that will now be brought up for an information item on May 14th so we will now move to item 5.02 business and financial services certificate of refunding of local school bond do I have a motion I move that the Finance and Operations Committee recommend the what this to the Loudoun County School Board to approve the certificate of refunding of local school

[00:11:32] bond I have a motion by mission off is there a second I second I have a second by mrs. Griffiths it's been probably moved and seconded that the Finance and Operations Committee recommend the Loudoun County School Board approved their certificate of refunding of local school bond appendix a is there any discussion or any questions seeing none we'll go ahead and take a vote on favor aye and that's unanimous may I get a thumbs up for this item to be brought up

[00:12:08] to the school board as a consent item on May 14th that will go to consent for May 14th thank you we will now move on to item 5.03 support services contract award for IFB number 24 - 531 safe routes to school countryside elementary school do I have a motion for that contract award I motion that the Finance and Operations Committee recommend to the Loudoun County School Board to approve the contract award of IFB number 24-531 state routes to school

[00:12:44] countryside yes and and all the things we have a motion by Miss Chernoff do I have a second I second I have a second by mrs. Griffiths it's been properly moved and seconded and I'll go ahead and read the whole thing that the Finance and Operations Committee recommend to the Loudoun County School Board to approve the contract award of IFB number 24-531 safe routes to school countryside ES to FH passion SN I guess patient SN Nielsen and Associates LLC in

[00:13:24] the amount of six hundred forty five thousand one hundred twenty five dollars and authorizes the chair of the school board to sign the final contract documents upon VDOT final approval is there any discussion seeing no discussion we will go ahead and take a vote all those in favor aye and so that motion passes unanimously may I get a thumbs up for this item to be brought forward to the school board as a consent item on May 14th and that will go to

[00:14:01] consent item on May 14th to the school board moving right along we will continue with item 5.0 for support services contract award of IFB number 24-532 Arcola Elementary School driveway connection I'll now entertain a motion I guess I'll keep going I recommend that the Finance and Operations Committee recommend to the Loudoun County School Board to approve the contract award of IFB number 24-532 Arcola ES driveway connection to FH patient S.N. Nielsen and Associates LLC in the amount of one million four hundred

[00:14:39] forty thousand two hundred dollars and authorizes that the chair of the school board to sign the final contract documents upon presentation I have a motion by Miss Chernoff do I have a second I second thank you we have a second from mrs. Griffiths the motion that the Finance and Operation Committee recommend to the Loudoun County School Board to approve the contract award of IFB number 24532 Arcola elementary school driveway connection to FH passion SN Nielsen and Associates LLC in the amount of 1 million 440 thousand $200 and authorizes the chair of the school board to sign the final contract

[00:15:16] documents upon the presentation has been properly moved and seconded is there any discussion seeing none let's go ahead and make a vote all those in favor I all those opposed it passes unanimously and may I get a thumbs up for this item to be brought forward to the school board as a consent item on May 14th yes that

[00:15:47] will go to the consent on may 14th all right moving right on to item 5.05 from support services grant of right-of-way agreement to dominion energy virginia at river bend middle school and i will now entertain a motion to approve the agreement i move that the finance and operations committee recommend that the loudon county school board approve the dominion energy virginia right of way agreement associated with the ev chargers on the river bend middle school property i have

[00:16:23] motion by mr. not to have a second I second thank you miss Griffiths have a second by mrs. Griffiths the motion that the Finance and Operations Committee recommend that the Loudoun County School Board approve the Dominion Energy Virginia right-of-way agreement associated with the EV chargers on the River Bend middle school property further that the chair of the school board is authorized to sign the right-of-way agreement upon the presentation has been properly moved and seconded is there any discussion okay all right all those we'll go ahead and vote all those in favor say I all

[00:17:03] those opposed right the motion passes unanimously and may I get a thumbs up to be brought forward to the school board as a consent item on May 14th yes okay now we have information items yes mr. Lewis would you like to say something thank you chairman just can we ask for one clarification back on item 5.01 the security guard services when you said going forward to the school board you mentioned information item and we were just want to clarify that was typically

[00:17:37] that would go as action I realize it didn't go as consent but is that your your desire to go as information or action just regular straight action we can go straight to action is that all right yeah good action thank you thanks mr. Lewis for keeping us on top of it all right moving on to our first information item 6.01 business and financial services Thomas Jefferson

[00:18:15] high school for science and technology school year 2025-2026 agreement presented by miss Renee Dawson director of teaching and learning community connections and programs and Wendy King gifted education supervisor and I'm assuming mr. Slevin as well thank you chair Mansfield we appreciate the opportunity to talk through this contract renewal and I'm going to turn it over to Miss Dawson and Miss King to present briefly on the purpose of this

[00:18:49] item and then we're happy to take any questions so good evening everyone the purpose of this information item is to share with the board the TJ contract LCPS is required to notify Fairfax public schools no later than June 1st 2024 if it intends to discontinue participation in sending to students to TJ for the 25-26 academic year.

[00:19:18] The application process for students entering in TJ in 2026 begins September of 2024, and I'll turn it over to Ms. King to see if she has anything additional to add. The only thing I would add is we are bringing up the topic of the contract and whether or not to continue it for next year.

[00:19:39] We would not have the contract in our hands until September. so we don't have the contract yet so we're bringing this up now so that we can tell them that we want a contract okay does this include also transportation even though that's not a part of their contract do would we be able to have

[00:20:07] that as a part of the information item for the school board so I was just gonna mention I think that may be more appropriate for the budget discussion this fall of whether or not to continue to provide transportation to teachers students okay thanks can I make one comment yes mr. seven thinking about thinking about the enrollment process when students apply for TJ this is an opportunity that many of our families pursue knowing whether or not

[00:20:43] transportation is going to be an option would be an important consideration and so recognizing that it is tied to the budget process not necessarily to this contract it is a related issue that we would probably want some board direction on so that we could communicate to families the intention of the board when would you like to have that conversation this time like at the board or do you want to wait to budget for our retreat yeah

[00:21:14] i would just say that the application process does begin in early october of next year so we would certainly want to have it in advance of that okay so i um well board members do you guys have any other questions before i okay so i would like to make a motion to send this to the full board as

[00:21:53] an information item on may 14th but in order to do that i'm going to have to make a motion to suspend the rules here which will need two-thirds of members to pass and there's no discussion to suspend the rules if that motion passes i'd like to make a subsequent motion to take this item to the full board as an information item on may 14th as opposed to going through consent so with that i would like to move to suspend the rules do i have a second second it's been properly moved and

[00:22:30] seconded to suspend the rules all in favor of suspending the rules say aye aye that motion passes and so now i'd like to make a motion that item 6.01 business and financial services thomas jefferson high school for science and technology school year 2025 2026 agreement be brought forward on the school board information agenda on may 14th 2024 do i have a second second thank you i have a

[00:23:04] second by um mrs griffiths it's been properly moved and seconded that item 6.01 business and financial services as thomas jefferson high school for science and technologies school year 2025 and 26 agreement be brought forward on the school board information agenda on may 14th 2024 is there any discussion i guess i just want to make sure that we move forward with this for transparency so that the whole board is aware because um and may have the ability and opportunity to ask questions as

[00:23:36] an information item and this will help us keep that june 1st 2024 deadline so that's so we will now do you guys have any questions or yes well board members first but mr.

[00:23:52] Slevin would you like to I just have a question of clarity for the information item so if you want to finish the motion I'll go ahead and finish the motion and we can take a vote and then you can ask okay we will now vote on that motion to bring it to the May 14th 2024 all in favor say aye aye and so that passes unanimously mr. seven based on your earlier question we can be prepared at the next board meeting to talk a little bit about what the transportation

[00:24:28] timeline decision may look like so that the board will have full information and so just if there's any additional information that you think would be helpful as an information item you can reach out or we could talk about it now but we'll prepare that information item with that in mind with the transportation question in mind yes mr. Slevin would that include trends from the passed in terms of transportation I think there's a couple of questions at least from our discussions from different discussions with board members that just what the contract entails what it doesn't and then how the transportation piece fits and then some historical data on just how much that

[00:25:07] costs and what that would look like moving forward in the budget I know we don't have exact numbers but would that be something that you would include or could include yes if there is a lot of data in the attachments I saw that yeah and I think on the last page there's a there's a column back to FY 14 with cost and so we could definitely zero in on that when we present to the full board and make it make it stand out in our information item oh I missed the last page there's a lot of yep a lot of text I see it now thank you but I think that

[00:25:44] would be of interest for the board to to see and to have that discussion because it's a $600,000 difference yes okay thank you so much we'll continue to six point oh two business and financial services RFP number are two three two five nine agency nursing and special education student services and this is

[00:26:18] going to be presented by Ms. Filio, Director of Peacare Merit Rishi. Good evening, thank you. This evening, this is the first of four renewal options for this contract. We did a contract, a new contract last fiscal year, and this is to provide special education and agency nursing services for Department of Student Services. As you can see in the background, there's a variety of services available through this contract to our students with specific needs. This is a to be in the amount of five hundred eighty three thousand and I bring it

[00:26:56] before you this evening to either be moved forward as a action item on your next agenda or consent item board members do you guys have any questions okay I guess we could bring this well I'll get a thumbs up to bring this back

[00:27:35] as consent for the May 21st F&O committee you want to bring this back to consent or action um this will go to CIAC right or not no okay so let's go let's bring this back item back for as consent thumbs up or thumbs down thumbs up for

[00:28:08] the May 21st F&O committee and we will move on to item 6.03 business and Financial Services, RFP number R23257, Civil and Environmental Engineering Services Renewal, presented by Mrs. Filial, Director of Procurement.

[00:28:29] Ms. Filial. This also is the first renewal on a contract that was originally awarded last year for our Civil and Environmental Engineering Services. This contract does include multiple vendors and is funded with operating appropriated funds as well as cip funds and we bring it before you this evening to either move forward as an action item or consent item at your next meeting board members are there any questions from miss

[00:28:59] filial okay may i get a thumbs up to bring this item back as consent for the may 21st fno committee that will go to consent for our fno committee on may 21st we'll now move on to 6.04 business and financial services are 2-1-2-7-1 transportation management system renewal presented again by miss filia this is a platform solution used by our

[00:29:34] transportation services and is being brought to you as a renewal request this is the second of four renewal options for this contract with trans finder corporation and once again you have the option to either approve and move as a action item at your next meeting or consent item board members do you have questions I do how often do we audit and change our student transportation

[00:30:06] technology what is this the systems I'll take that miss Mansfield so this system is you can see here this is the second of four renewals so we've done this two years ago since this is the second year and prior to that we had the same system an edulog system it was probably in place for 25 years or more so we went through a full process when we changed over systems a couple years ago and you know we working through new technology and you may recall that the we had a different app that let parents know when the bus was coming and you do that so

[00:30:44] that changed and that all that happened at the same time because they're associated with those different apps so this was the first time in quite a while I just didn't know if there was like a set time every five ten years we kind of audit and go through things or not we had not done that for quite a while as I mentioned but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing that in the future and what we will be doing well I will say that this is the after the four renewals that we'll do that whole process again and we'll put it out for RFP so that'll happen once we finish the renewal processes what happens if the if we do

[00:31:20] do the transportation look and and audit for staggered times and everything and they suggest something else what is that would that be part of it yes so we are engaging this company to do that study with us and also this company plus two other consultants to make sure that we get a thorough understanding of all the ins and outs and making sure also that we're not just getting one opinion so this company will be a part of that process okay thank you anybody else have any other questions no okay so can I get a thumbs up to bring this item back as

[00:31:58] consent for May 21st F&O committee looks like we'll bring that back to consent um moving to item 6.05 business and financial services rfp number r19201 vehicle repair services renewal presented by ms filia once again this is a contract for our transportation services to provide outsourced vehicle repair services for things that may not be able to be done in our central garage the example i always use is pulling an engine out of a bus is not

[00:32:34] something that comes easily as a day-to-day task so with that being said this is the third of six renewal options for this contract and with award to multiple vendors and once again you have the option to bring this back as consent or action on your next agenda thank you board members do you have any questions may I get a thumbs up to bring this item back as a consent for the May 21st F&O

[00:33:07] committee yes that would be a yes okay we'll move on to item 6.06 business and financial services Loudoun County School Board to request financing for approves CIP projects bless you not to exceed forty three million six hundred eighty four thousand dollars for school purposes and this would be presented by miss Susan Casale or Casale or Casale director of financial services thank you

[00:33:44] and good afternoon this item is regarding the resolution of the school board requesting the Board of Supervisors to request the circuit court to order a special election to issue general obligation bonds of the county or to apply for Virginia Public School Authority financing LCPS is prohibited from issuing and carrying debt for the Virginia Code Lowen County is the entity that issues debt to fund capital school projects and bears the responsibility of paying the debt because the debt is issued for school projects the school board takes action to support the county's activities this action is coordinated with the county staff seeking the school

[00:34:21] board's approval to issue debt to support funding projects as adopted in the FY25 capital improvement program the Loudoun County finance staff will bring this information to the Board of Supervisors Finance Committee meeting on June 11th and after the school board approves the county staff will take action and this item will be held will be on the ballot in November board members do anybody have any does anyone have any questions no and this looks like it's for school bus replacement and associated infrastructure and design and

[00:35:00] construction improvement of LCPS capital facility renewals and alterations is that what I'm reading yes okay thank you mrs. Kosali may I get a thumbs up to bring this back this item back as consent for our May 21st F&O committee great that's thank you okay item 6.07 support services transfer of County held LCPS sip a CIP contingency funding to Watson middle Mountain middle school project prevent presented by Joseph Pasquarelli director of construction

[00:35:39] thank you miss manager I'm gonna start and then I have mr. Pasquarelli to fill in I just wanted to give a little bit of background on this process since this is this committee's first time to see this type of action so the county provides us the funding as you just saw with the general obligation bonds through the the CIP but there's also two accounts that they hold and manage in in partnership with the school board and that is for land acquisition and for the contingency fund so each year there are contingency funds that are held at the board of supervisors and in order to access those funds we as staff request the school

[00:36:16] board to request from the Board of Supervisors to be able to use those funds and so this is in alignment with what we are using it for and I'll let mr. pass really go into a little bit more about the reason reasoning behind this but I just want to give an overview of why this mechanism is being presented to you it's just because it's a formal process for us to ask permission to use the funds and I'll ask mr. pass really to talk about the details hi good afternoon and so roughly two years ago during the summer of 22 the construction industry was still experiencing significant inflation as well as

[00:36:52] unpredictable material lead times as a result the pricing that we received for the construction for Watson Mountain Middle School was over budget at that point we proceeded to work with the contractor and identify ways ways to reduce the project cost through this process we had to defer some scope of the project from the project which included the rooftop solar panels so we are here seeking approval to request a funding transfer from the county held CIP contingency fund to add these back to the project as well as provide some

[00:37:24] additional contingency funding board members do you have any questions thank you mr. Pasquarelli um may I get a thumbs up to bring this item back as consent at the May 21st F&O committee that's so yes we will bring that item

[00:37:56] back as consent at the May 21st F&O committee all right we will now move to item 6.08 support services school name review presented by mr. Kevin Lewis dr.

[00:38:11] Leticia Alice Williams and miss Beverly Tate thank you miss Mansfield I'll start off this tonight is with a little bit of background and history of how we got to where we are and you'll you'll see in the item that in 2020 this was the consideration of renaming some of our schools was a part of our action plan to combat systemic racism and that also included the names of the schools but also mascots one of the things we have already done is change the the mascot at Loudoun County High School if you recall that so we did contract a company

[00:38:49] called history matters to do a comprehensive name review and they have done that and provided summaries and surveys and historical background on each of the schools in phases and then they reviewed all that and in the review they established certain criteria that we're going to be comparing our names against and and those are lists there but I think are very important so their review of names that may have schools that may have been named for Confederate leaders confederate the confederate cause the confederacy or the confederate states of america

[00:39:25] also they may be named for individuals who lived in the 17th 18th or 19th centuries during a period of time when slavery was fundamental part of our economic cultural and political systems in virginia and northern virginia and then the last criteria was any schools that may have been named for individuals or movements that promoted and implemented racial segregation the racial segregation laws in virginia jim crow and the massive resistance so that was the basis of the review and then as we move forward we were able to determine that we do not have any schools that

[00:40:00] were named after confederate leaders or the confederate cause but we did have the the review done in in three different phases so the the group put that together in three phases for us and identified those that might have potential association with this criteria that was for phase one and phase two includes schools that were named after a person so sometimes it may not be obvious who the person was or why it was named after them so we did a little deeper dive on that and then phase three was all the rest of the schools so in november of 21 the school board requested assistance from reviewing these names from history matters and also from the black

[00:40:39] history committee of the thomas balch library so we we reached out and got folks in the community to help us with that to make sure we weren't missing anything with the process and to duly advise the school board of where the origins of these names came from in june of 22 the school board reviewed the names in phase one and phase two as well as the findings of the black history committee and they determined that 10 of the 19 schools in the first two phases really needed to be looked at more closely and those are the schools you see in the chart and they were they were put in sections or in groups of

[00:41:16] a b c and d and group a included the first two which were francis hazel reed and mercer middle school and then continue to work on that in october of 22 school board was reviewed all this information and then they initiated a review from the first group of group a so they asked us to start looking at group a which included francis hazel reed and mercer middle school part of that the policy requires us to have town halls and so town hall meetings were held for

[00:41:52] the mercer community and the leesburg community where francis hazel reed is and then that came back as uh as information in february of 23 as well at that time the school board decided to postpone any further action on this item until september of 2023 and then in september of 2023 we were not able to get that on the agenda and so that's where this stands so what we are seeking now staff as we have that history provided that to you and we're looking for some direction from the new committee starting here and then also the school board itself on how

[00:42:31] you would like to proceed with that and a couple options we've outlined is you can continue the previously identified phase one in phase two although we would from a staff perspective we would recommend that you start over with the community meeting since those meeting means are for you board members to hear comments and so since that took place prior to this board seating then we would recommend that we'd start over with that the other option would be to just host a series of community meetings to see where the community sits with that so you have some some idea so it wouldn't be specifically referenced a particular project to be the overall process and so that is a summary of the

[00:43:09] history of that mr. Tate dr. Ellis Williams and I are here to answer any questions you have and hopefully we'll be able to do that and see if you have any thoughts on how to proceed before I start board members do you have any yes go ahead mrs. Griffiths forgive me I have several you mentioned the mascot how many schools have been renamed so far so we have not renamed any schools but we

[00:43:42] have renamed one mascot do we have a breakdown of the costs to do this we we could find and we have presented to the previous board the amount that costs to do the mascot and we could find that information and bring it back that would be no problem at all but anything else we would be doing would be estimating based on that experience and it may be different but it would definitely be different at different levels from you know the elementary middle and high school thank you I'd like to see those numbers even if they are estimates how much do we pay history matters I don't have that off the top of my head but we

[00:44:22] can find that as well I'm sorry and is the contract up at this time I don't yeah will ask mr. Tate to talk about the contract we have a contract with history matters to review any school names including schools that you may name in this process by appointing a committee they're an hourly rate and so we are charged per the hour of rate that contract is currently an active contract that we have open and if I may it was about 1 million to 1.5 million for

[00:44:58] the mascot change at Loudoun County High School I would ask my board members to refer to the previous board that this was never brought as an action item thank you so I found this fascinating I was I did a lot of deep dive into this and and I think when you know better you do better and I my personal thought is that

[00:45:33] we should make these changes because it's important and there was one and pardon me because this is going to be it's in our it's let me find it real quick but yeah let me find it and then I'll come back to it but but suffice it to say I think that this has gone on long enough and I think we should go

[00:46:07] ahead and make those changes so I'll let you go and then I'll say something I I have a clarifying question, Mr. Lewis. You said, so can you just review, again, the initial review was to see if any of the people that were named were Confederate leaders themselves, correct?

[00:46:30] Not necessarily associated with the Confederate organizations. Was that the, I just was confused when you said that. So there was actually a number of things. So whether or not a school may have been named for a Confederate leader or the Confederate cause, the Confederacy itself, or the Confederate States of America.

[00:46:52] So anything in that realm would have flagged that review in that process. And none of them came back on that or these in the chart did? So none of them came back that we named any schools after a Confederate leader. Okay. But the rest of them. Were related to the organizations and the battles.

[00:47:09] right and there are each of the reviews is included in board docs as well so you can see the review for each of the schools thank you I appreciate that I was just confused about what I I knew that they pinged on some of them but not that first one is what you were saying and dr. Ellis Williams may have a clarifying culture actually I have several statements in regards to this I thank you champions fail for acknowledging that this is long overdue so when communities named schools they're communicating to the public very much including children, which values they hold dear. Naming schools, like naming other public

[00:47:46] spaces such as streets, buildings, parks, is an opportunity for communities to declare what or who should be honored. Historically, the practice of naming schools to honor the architects and defenders of slavery has been a part of a broader effort to maintain racial hierarchy in the United States. In particular, many schools were given Confederate named themes and names in the 1950s and 60s as a line of effort for the massive resistance, particularly to prevent school integration. These names amplify racial inequities in society, the opportunity gap for black, Latinx, and brown students, and the white privilege that allows for many educators to

[00:48:25] remain oblivious to the suffering of students and colleagues of color. When we look at more than 240 schools in the United States are named after a Confederate leader, about half of those serve minority black and non-white students so to add to the understanding of the gravity of the implications for students and staff alike to work and attend a school that is named after any of the aforementioned is harmful period

[00:48:57] thank you dr. Alice Williams I would have I agree and I was looking for this quote in one of these things which really brought it home to me and who did this with this Beverly was that Beverly Tate that's who did it it was the Black History Committee's letter to me on their first review of the first 19 names that it was sent to me yes

[00:49:30] ma'am something that me I didn't think about was something like Sully you didn't think that that was for me I wasn't thinking about that but then when she said something that you Sully was a plantation and then you wouldn't name a place auschwitz you know i mean that really brought it home and it was in this documentation for me in this letter and i was like that's really right we wouldn't do that and why would we do that now and um it's i guess there would be selden's landing

[00:50:09] sully hutchinson farm and and belmont um i think that we should move forward and go ahead and rename these schools the one caveat i have is how and again it was in page three like removing the names of these places without the history of these places being put into the public conscience conscience would amount to cover up the truth honoring these places in the public space without consciously knowing the truth is the definition of systematic racism before removal a conscious effort should be made to bring to light the atrocities committed on this land and so how

[00:50:48] would we go about doing that kind of thing is while we're we don't want to just erase it we want to honor and move forward dr. Alice Williams do you have a so there are a cadre of ways in which um this could happen through whether it's a change of a mascot or the change of a name is when you bring together the community i suggest amplification of student voice making sure that they have an understanding. How we ensure or enshrine that history would be up to the division ultimately, and I agree it should not just be erased, and it should be acknowledged as well as

[00:51:28] why that transformation or change occurred as well. So I do agree that it should be not preserved, but accessible. Ms. Manfield, if I may, I think I interpreted part of your question was about the mechanics of that and so this this is going to be a heavy lift because it includes a number of public hearings and public meetings and both at the school board to dr. Ellis Williams his point about getting the student voice in and getting the public hearings and those types of things so I do think the board

[00:52:07] really needs to think through how much of that they can do at once and you know we can't just magically change them all at one time and I think some of that experience and going through that as we hear back from the community what the process and we might develop our process over time and so that's why one of the recommendations was do you want us to start with phase one I mean we could tackle them all at one time but I think that's gonna be difficult to do because the other thing I want you to recall or remember or realize because you probably don't know this is we will create a school naming committee for each school so that is a pretty significant process the state's team leads those meetings

[00:52:44] and there's what series of four or five meetings that you go through for that each group brings in a reasoning so you know I have to do what we were just talking about about preserving how we got to where we are but we also then need to evaluate any future names and so that's that's a pretty significant process itself so that might be something more it's more discussions but the mechanics of that will take some time and so once we get some guidance from the committee and the board then we will be able to put together that plan to try to figure that best way to go about that so i see it's a group a group b group c group d

[00:53:21] this i'm thinking this is kind of the what they would like to see in kind of that order group a first group b or does it or do we know so that was a recommendation we got from the group was in in that order but that's up to the board to decide that and so the previous board picked group a and and had the two meetings for francis hazel reed and mercer and that's just how that was recommended to be laid out but certainly we're open to that conversation and for guides from the board and so you could change the order of that you could say do them all at once which i think is probably not the best way to go about doing that but

[00:53:59] um and so that as we go through this committee conversation and we get to the full board maybe maybe you'll get some insight as to how other board members think about you know what would be the preferred method when you had those original town hall meetings what was the subject was it to do to read whether the community felt like we should rename or should we not or was it more what where were where was the town hall meetings in that process and was that feedback recorded anywhere I didn't see a

[00:54:37] summary of that I'm gonna ask mrs. Tate to remind me of that I think she's probably got a better memory and was closer to that those meetings the meetings followed policy and so we had the initial town hall to seek comment from the committee or from the community from staff from students to seek comment from them they were very lively dialogues I believe some someone from communications office did record the meeting that we had at Mercer Middle School the meeting at Francis Hazel Reed we probably had 12 persons in attendance but both meetings were just out there to have the conversation to

[00:55:16] talk about the name we had those who were in support of changing the name we had those who were against changing the name but it was a very civil and very productive meeting for both of them we had board members that attended and we did not record them they weren't in a place where we could record correct they were public but we just didn't have the means yes yes thank you yeah I guess that's my only concern is like I mean like you said it would be nice to hear what people's thoughts are and to rally the community and that could be a springboard for that larger community conversation because I do think that

[00:55:55] this involves the community and if we are going to amplify student voice you know I would love to know if there is a summary of that feedback or if the recording for Mercer is found I think that would be interesting for us as we place this context as it goes to the full board just for us to you know to really understand where the community was at at that time as it is a community issue I think how many time how many schools do we normally go through like and but sometimes I think that we've had like two or three schools having a naming committee at the same time is there a set amount that we've done at

[00:56:33] once we have had four schools named during one spring season we had four separate naming committees that have been appointed by the board independence Lightridge Willard and I believe Goshen Post so they are each unique because they're each geared around the communities that they will either ultimately serve as new schools or in this instance would be the communities that it involves it involves alumni and involves staff who had been there it wasn't just looking and involving the students who are there now it's the

[00:57:11] future students in the past students because we had folks attended both that felt strongly anybody else have any more questions first off I would just like to say it is an insult to compare Sully plantation to Auschwitz thank you as I mentioned before I want to see all costs for renaming all of these schools and then from there go to community meetings thank you

[00:57:48] Ms. Phil, if I may, we have the historical costs, Ms. Griffith, for the renaming of the high school at Lyman County High School's mascot. We're not going to be in a position, I think, to provide an accurate accounting of how much it would cost.

[00:58:07] I will take estimates. We'll do what we can. It depends on how the board takes the process. We may be woefully off, but we'll give it a shot.

[00:58:21] So I'm hearing that the next thing that we would be doing would we would be bringing this forward as an action item for the next committee meeting and continue this conversation and then we look at and so the first item would be to maybe have those community feedback if we if the board so chooses after we move on from here.

[00:58:57] Yes, so we'll bring back as much information as we can, including the estimates for the next meeting here for this committee's action. And then probably have the same conversation with the full board and bring them up to speed. But I guess what we'd be looking for is a recommendation from this committee to the full board of how you think we should go about that.

[00:59:18] And so we had a couple of those draft recommendations in there about whether we just continue with phase one and phase two like we did before. or maybe we take a step back and just have community meetings talking about renaming schools in general without a specific reference that and you get a feel for that either way you want to do that but that would be something we'll be looking for to try to put together the information I'm for the full board when we go to them yes ma'am when you provide the estimates I would like to have this have these community meetings so we can share the costs of what this what renaming would be thank

[00:59:58] you okay so we'll move this to action for our next committee meeting all right item six point oh nine school start kind supports at school start hot time community feedback presented by mr. Kevin Lewis Kenneth Davies dr. David

[01:00:23] Blakelock gentlemen I hope so - Glenn said he would be out thank you for your

[01:04:03] patience sorry about that so tonight mr. Davies and dr. Blakelock and i are here to talk about the school start times and as you know we've had a couple of conversations at the full board and and on april 9th the school board reviewed that time schedule and that we started last year or in 2022 and what essentially what we did is we went from three tiers to five tiers where elementary schools and middle schools had one start time before and then we changed and had two for elementary and two for middle school and

[01:04:39] the high school stayed the way it was the school board asked us to do an in depth study of this and so our goal is is to start this process tonight to give you an idea of how we want to start gathering information and that would be including getting community feedback on on what the community thinks about whether or not we should do that i'll also add that during the conversation we had the school board ask us to also include a consideration or a discussion at some level about not only the start times for elementary schools which has been the focus the schools that are starting at 7:30 but also looking at would it be the

[01:05:18] community's wish to change from the high school starting late in elementary school starting early and possibility changing the order of how we do that currently as you probably know we're the only school system that does have the later starting high schools in the region and maybe that means we got it right and maybe our community loves that and so that's part of what we want to find out as we go through this process okay so the other thing we want to do is just to lay out a timeline and my age is showing because I'm too far away to

[01:05:53] read that so I'm gonna try to guess at what I said so well mine's over there so can't even see it actually I have it here so so anyway we want to start with our general discussion and getting a community and staff survey out and so that's what we're working on right now we're working with mr. Allen and the Department of Communications to help us with the survey and also Razzie with dr.

[01:06:17] Blake lock I see dr. Tyler's here as well so he was thank you for being here so we want to try to gather as much information and make sure we have have accurate information and as full as we can the second bar you'll see down there that's stemming from now from May and to August is minimal impact adjustments so what we've done what mr. Davies and his team are doing are they're looking at certain criteria based on the earliest pickup time not the earliest start time for a school but schools that have the early time in the ones that have the earliest pickup times are there some small things that we can

[01:06:55] do in the fall of 2024 that could possibly do that and so his team is currently working through all those numbers essentially what that means is we have to reroute the whole county to do that and so it's not a small lift is a pretty huge undertaking is to try to go in and establish routes because it's not something where we can just say this school this school and this school will change because there's a domino effect at the middle school in the high school level so we're going to take that and look and see if there are certain things that we can find with minimal resources essentially you know it's easy to assume that any change we make is going to require at least another driver another

[01:07:35] route I will say that we report on to the board on a regular basis the routing or the recruiting that's being done both with the transportation team as with HR TD has been hugely successful and we've greatly reduced the number of driver shortages we have and as of today we have one driver short which is the first time since I've been in this job in 13 years that we've been able to say that so it's it's a pretty significant effort it's been happening but there's still lots of work to do so we're also going to start this consultant study which is going to take us and have a couple of different avenues that we're

[01:08:11] going to be looking at so as we mentioned earlier that the TransFinder folks that we have our contract with that does a routing is going to be a part of helping establish roots what can we look at to possibly make a difference mr. Gandhi's comments earlier we have also talked about is there incremental moves do we have to can we move some of them somewhere and so we're looking at those things too those are all being done with the help of our consultants we've also had an engineering firm to help us give a different look at that to make sure we're considering everything possible to provide the best service we

[01:08:45] can then once you get into 2024 i mean in the second half of 2024 you'll see we'll be talking to cabinet members and principals to give feedback from them and also a survey of stakeholders again so the first survey we'll talk a little bit about here in a few minutes because we have some sample things for you to look at but in anticipation of the potential for any significant changes may cause significant increases we've also put a placeholder in there in that October November timeframe to talk about budget because this would affect our

[01:09:21] budget and so mr. Davies would come back and say if we're going to do X Y and Z this would be result in a number of drivers buses those types of things and here are the resources we would need to be able to implement that you'll see there that we have another placeholder in November to come back to the F&O to bring comments that we learned from that and and continue to have that conversation because what we'll need to do is be and you see at the very bottom of the first 20 in January of 2025 that we go to school board in January the 14th of January we're going to need a recommendation from us and a decision by

[01:10:01] the school board in that January timeframe because it takes several months to do this routing and so the routing process starts and you see that starting in the February timeframe and takes all the way through June and it is a significant lift and you can imagine to try to find a way to get 83,000 students to each school and you know with special programs and all that so there's a lot to that so once we get guidance from the board then we would put in place implementation of anything that we can agree on that would be the way to move forward so we did want to talk about how how we think is the best

[01:10:40] way to get this information and so we have a tool that we can use called thought exchange and essentially we could put together a question that says what's your experience been with the current school start tops and because I'm going to need help explaining to you what a thought exchange is we have a video

[01:11:30] The ThoughtExchange platform enables you to achieve greater participation, delve deeper into your insights, and generate actionable ideas in far less time than ever before. Let's dive into how ThoughtExchange works. The ThoughtExchange platform provides two main tools for engagement: surveys and exchanges.

[01:11:54] Used individually or together, each tool enables you to collect the right type of data at the right time. With surveys, you'll have access to multiple question types, enabling you to quickly collect quantitative data so you can get to know the demographics of your participants or measure how they feel about a particular issue.

[01:12:14] Exchanges, on the other hand, let you ask a single open-ended question to gather in-depth qualitative data. An exchange gives your participants the opportunity to share their own unique perspectives and prioritize each other's ideas through an anti-bias rating system.

[01:12:30] This allows you to surface nuances in the data to not only identify what is most important to the group, but also why it's the most important. Exchanges? Choose from our library of questions for a wide range of education use cases, building popular topics for school clients, staff retention, strategic planning, and bonding facilities planning.

[01:12:51] Don't see a use case that's right for you? Simply create your own. Customize your exchange to reflect your district's goals and easily include a written introduction, attachments such as a pdf document or share a relevant video once you've created your survey or exchange simply share with any size group using a link that participants can access on any device participants share their insights and read each other's answers anonymously avoiding bias and with

[01:13:19] multilingual capabilities in their preferred language to analyze the data so you and your two months to manually sort through the sense of the responses with the results dashboard you'll You'll instantly have access to all of your insights.

[01:13:44] Our built-in analysis tools include automatically generated summaries, emerging themes, comparison charts, much more.

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[01:15:18] So that's one tool and the best way to describe it, I think, is it's a pretty cool tool to be able to do and collect a tremendous amount of data and organize it and put it in a format that we can actually utilize the information.

[01:15:38] So I did want to continue a little bit more and talk about, you know, we do have the ability or another option to survey our community, our stakeholders.

[01:15:53] one way to do that is to ask sample questions and we wanted to provide some of the questions so we can see one of the things we want to do is we want to make sure that once we get information back the board has confidence in it and the questions weren't leading in any way one way or the other and that everyone had a chance to look at that so we're we're looking for some feedback on how you how you feel about you know a question as simple as please rank the following factors when considering your preferred school schedule where rank one is the most important rank six is the least and so you know that and then you know how strongly do you support or oppose your child's current school time and that gives folks that are in favor of the current times and folks that

[01:16:31] aren't you know generally you hear from people that are happy more than you do that that are so one of the things we want to make sure we get as many people responding to the questions as possible and then we have the one question there related to the elementary and high school start times just to see if that's something that the community is interested in having that conversation that stemmed from the conversation and comments from board members the other week the survey options you know outside of the thought exchange there's a couple ways to do that one is with a unique link and so if you're a parent or

[01:17:05] your teacher or anyone else the faculty member staff member you can get a unique link that our friends and mr. Blake locks group will send out a unique link to each of those and so each person has the ability to answer one time the disadvantage to that right now at this point is we cannot send a general link to our students without giving the parents 30 days to opt out of that and so with this unique link thing we would omit the parent the students from that survey and then we would not hear the student voice in there the other way to

[01:17:42] do a survey that allow people to a self-identify is the generous a general survey link and we're not recommending that would just let you know that's one the tools you could do because multiple people could respond multiple times and then you lose your credibility the data at some point in time because we have the unique link we know exactly who responded and who put the information in so we can sit that in because you're going to want to know you know who said what and so you know if if a hundred percent of the staff is in favor of one thing and hundred percent of the parents are in favor of the other it's going to be important for you to know who's who said that and so that's why the unique

[01:18:16] link is a better option for that so part of what we wanted to do tonight is find out from you what else are we missing what else do you think we need to learn or glean or get back from a public information public input session getting information from our stakeholders so that we can start moving forward with recommendations and also help guide our consultants to as we talk work through

[01:18:43] this work I just really appreciate this this is really wonderful to see this in action I you know obviously personally kind of carried this and brought it to the full board and and was you know anxious to see how we could move this through committee and I'm grateful to be here today to be part of the conversation so thank you this is wonderful one thing I just want to really thank you for is I know originally realizing just what a lift

[01:19:22] this is going to be or could potentially be I know when I put the that back out that you know this is probably a year or more long process for us to get to a solution that really matters and and has all of the components that we would look for and doing our due diligence as a school board some were really disappointed because they want a quick fix they want it to just go away which understandably so it's impacting their daily lives but I really feel that you've been intentional about addressing the minimal impact adjustments and seeing where we can have some things may be looked at by fall I think that that's that I don't want that to be understated because that really shows that

[01:20:02] you see that there is impact and you know I think you guys have really I can speak personally really worked with me along the way and I never felt that it was swayed in one way or the other I really felt like you were bringing us the information and that you were very much on board with if we felt like we wanted to go forward that we would sit here and have this conversation and we're having it and so I don't I want to make sure that you know that we see that and that you have for the public to know that you have worked really alongside me and getting to this point I'm excited about a survey I think it's important I'm

[01:20:36] a little con I'm twofold one I think for as far as early start times go since it is our littlest kids I don't necessarily know that that particular aspect needs to be student voice I think the parent and teacher voice is adequate there others may disagree with me however in thinking about a high school switch if that's gonna be on the table or if we're gonna ask if that even wants to be on the table I want to make sure that we are that I do think student voice would be important there we've been hearing I know my school visits and even went to some government presentations at a couple of different high schools and

[01:21:14] kids were saying you know it's tough for me to get a job it's tough for me to you know with the later times with sports and you know different things like that but I think that there's a lot to consider I think there's a lot that I definitely haven't thought of yet and so this is the means to do that I'm seeing thought exchange in action a little bit through the leaf committee and I I think it does a really nice job in live time you know kind of connecting all those dots I think it will help us to see those things so I would be interested to hear what you all think in terms of the staff student voice and and other things I don't know did you want specific ideas for questions on the survey or are you

[01:21:53] looking more just for how we want that to roll out all of the above so if you have specific things that you can think of that you that we really should be making sure we're asking we want to make sure we ask okay I mean I have a list but I can send that to you I also want to just keep in mind one group that might get missed in a survey that I've heard from a lot of people is our incoming kindergarten parents so we can't reach them through the unique link is my understanding but they are very concerned as their kindergartners will be potentially impacted by the early start times and I think that that is a

[01:22:31] voice worth hearing if they have a first-time kindergartner coming in and that is a concern I will yield the rest of my questions for now miss Griffith thank you who else is using thought exchange surrounding counties is everybody who else is using it where did you come up with thought exchange where did you find it it is a tool that I believe came to us through DDI with mr.

[01:23:05] mr. Smith's area but I'm not positive that and in case I missed it what is the final cost on it I have no idea we could find that out I just want to also add that the parents of Latin can everybody gets surveys constantly so what makes thought exchange better than the regular surveys we already do it's just a different tool and it's not just an answer to a question but it allows people to to add comments and then continue to have that conversation

[01:23:40] within the tool I'll ask dr. Blakelock to probably give a much better explanation so I'm thinking about getting an understanding of where what what people are feeling their perceptions you have the idea of depth what is the depth of perceptions and then you have the idea of breadth how widespread are they usually qualitative research focus groups interviews gets gets that that depth aspect of it and the survey gets at the breadth what thought exchange does is to the specific question it does a good blend of both of those because it asks a specific question and then people are rating it

[01:24:18] so you get an understanding of how many people would actually agree with that it's also very exploratory in nature there may be things that we are not thinking of in this room that we don't know we don't know what we don't know and thought exchange is a tool that can be used to be able to identify some of those things with the current surveys that we do now are we getting a huge response to warrant getting another something else to use for surveys so the the survey software that we can the way we conduct surveys right now is actually

[01:24:57] through a different piece of software it is much more much more robust survey software that allows for things like the single single-use lakes those sorts of things survey response rates have been declining over this past year because they just have been we have had a fair number of surveys in the spring we try to promote them as best as we possibly can through principles through communications through blackboard messages through Facebook ads but we have not seen as robust a response rate this year as we have last year real quick

[01:25:35] isn't the risk isn't that there a blue ribbon panel thought exchange on that right now that's happening we've had like what 400 responses and things like that right now I can't respect I can't speak to the response count off the top of my head to that one but we are using it right now correct yes it is being use liberate flutter and safety panel I didn't want to clarify miss Griffith so we have not bought this tool for this survey this is a tool that's already in place and as we pointed out it being used for other things so so we were just saying that's a tool that we can use for this this process as well but it's not

[01:26:11] being purchased for this study that makes sense but to use it to do more surveys there will be a cost associated I'm not sure about that but we'll find that out do you have any other more are you gonna send you okay go ahead and just play devil's advocate a little bit with this was something that the community specifically brought to us as board members so I think whether or not people fill out responses will also tell us whether there's a need so I think that that's important to remember I guess my

[01:26:49] question was in terms of just for the needs assessment pivoting a little bit are you guys thinking about a needs assessment in terms of do we need to change the times or what we would need to change the times just a clarification there and good question and I'm not certain maybe needs assessment is not the best title for that we're trying to get a feel for how the community feels about the start times okay and um those who agree with it those who disagree with it any any input that we can have to decide whether or not you know we need

[01:27:26] to make a change and if so what kind of changes we need to make so what are the principle what problem are we trying to solve and you know as I pointed out the other week when we talked to the board is we had an unmanageable problem we had to solve before with the second loads and the on-time ratings and so what we did is develop the what the current plan which has solved many of those problems so we from our side feel like we have made great improvements in our reliability and our level of service one of those consequences was the early start time so now is that the only problem we have and so we don't want to

[01:28:03] solve one problem only to find out there's something else and that's one of the reasons we thought about and I think the board probably in that conversation agreed that we don't want to go through this process and say okay well this is the the best that we can do for this now let's start talking about flipping the elementary and the high school let's talk about this let's see where the community feels about all of those things so we know exactly what the community thinks about where we are then what what challenges we face what do we need to address okay i appreciate that i agree i think that that will help us with the trajectory if we have to take multiple or if we're just taking one and then i will just read off my

[01:28:40] short list of things because i want it to sort of be on the record for people um just from my feedback i wish i had thought exchange through my social media because i would comb through all of it today just to pull out the themes but um just some of the things to think about were in terms of the little guys is loss of sleep whether it affected their absenteeism and tardiness hunger in terms of not eating breakfast bus ridership and car line impacts in terms of if people stopped riding the bus to drive instead and whether that impacted the car line or bus ridership went down

[01:29:15] in those specific areas test scores and then child care whether that impacted child care and their ability to access activities some parents talked about not being able to do later activities because they had to get their kids to bed for the early start time so those were just some some things I wanted to make sure we put on the table and I will close with that thank you again so just one thing to kind of follow up with on that when you saw that ranking question up there the concepts that folks were ranking were things like after-school activities students amount of students sleep so those were things where people were putting those in relation to each other to see really what the most important things were across the board

[01:29:54] so are we gonna be able to see that before it goes out I think the idea here was to try to get proof of concept here today draft it and then have you take another look at it before we actually send it out okay great thank you any other questions oh yes miss will be the was able to pull some information to answer mrs. Griffiths questions in terms of there's an annual cost for thought exchange this was purchased for division use both externally and internally the cost for the annual is ninety two thousand and it's all inclusive so

[01:30:30] there's not any additional costs for any additional surveys we have full use of the tool as purchased thank you miss will be for getting that information any other questions before we move on I just look forward to discussing this at a later date okay so it looks like we will continue this to go action next time to go to the full board yes ma'am that's our plan is dr. Blakelock said we get

[01:31:10] proof of concept tonight we'll further develop some of those questions and bring those back and then seek your guidance to recommend this to the full board and we would go back to the full board and have the same conversation with them so this will go back to action next time here to go back to the full board yes and I need to rethink what I also just said because I think we might be out of time I think sorry we're out of time because we need to survey before we get to the end of school so we were we were going to move forward with the guidance from the committee with putting up the survey, whatever we decide, after that meeting on

[01:31:47] the 21st, this meeting on the 21st. Wait, can you say that again? Sorry, and I caused the confusion, so I apologize for that. So one of our challenges is to make sure we get the community surveyed before the end of the school year, and so, and we've built our calendar to try to do that. If not, we miss the opportunity to do that until the fall, and then we're going to have trouble getting everything done and so our goal was to get after the meeting on the 21st which is the next F&O meeting that we would we would issue the surveys after that to make sure that we had some consensus by this committee to move forward with the

[01:32:26] surveys could you remind me the motion or the motion of what happened at the last school board meeting or was it just that we would do the assessment as the F&O committee and not go to the full board is that that was our understanding okay that's what i'm trying to remember all right so we're going to be the ones who are responsible for the assessment then then what were it's not really a needs assessment but for the okay so then i feel more the full board would not get it until after it's already been disseminated right which

[01:33:04] is what you had on the timeline right the january date for us to have to decide if we're moving forward with something as a full board but we could uh publish the the results of the survey before we have any recommended changes to the process.

[01:33:21] Okay, so you're going to come back next time with questions for the survey, is that correct? And then we will vote to go ahead and just implement it since that's our charge as the F&O committee.

[01:33:37] Yes. And then we will publish those results and send them to the board. Just as a matter of logistics, we translate all of our surveys into the five most spoken languages inside the division and so that takes a few days after the survey has been approved to do those translations in addition to that we'll see if we can find a creative way to find create unique links for our incoming kindergartners who we may have information on as the registering for school great thank you okay so if there are no many other

[01:34:08] questions I'll go on to item six point one oh six point ten yes okay support services overview of current wireless network facility co-location on LCPS property presented by Brian stocks director of management and coordination hello thank you chair so this item today is before you there's no action requested of the committee but we have a few things that are coming here in the

[01:34:43] near future one item is next on our agenda here today and another in the pipeline to come before this committee related to cellular towers so we wanted to give you an overview of just how the cellular tower program is is currently managed and operated so that you have a little familiarity or if you have questions or any additional information requested as we start to navigate through our future items that are related in in October of 2017 the London County Public Schools school board adopted a policy to outline and provide

[01:35:17] guidance for how we could entertain and uh take into consideration proposals for co-located cellular towers on school property in august of 2020 we entered a master license agreement with milestone towers to begin to enter a review and bring forward to the school board proposals for cell tower locations as you will see in the board item i have pulled out some things that are are in regulation and provide us the guidance whereas you'll see there's mo there's multiple

[01:35:55] public briefings and opportunities for community feedback when a proposal is brought forward through staff to the committee and this any proposal must go through the finance and operations committee as well as the full school board for approval once approved by the school board for the site and location on the site at the the um lcps property the contractor milestone is still required to go through all of the board of supervisors land approvals and um and ultimately

[01:36:30] the this board of supervisors approval before they can be granted a site license agreement and begin construction so that's an overview really we have three approved cell tower sites on LCPS co-located with LCPS schools Rock Ridge High School was the first Mickey Gordon Park which does not have a school site located on but it is owned by LCPS has as an approved tower site and Woodgrove High School has it has an approved tower site that is not owned by LCPS it's owned by the County of Loudon and we lease we have a long-term lease with the county of

[01:37:09] Loudon for the Woodgrove and Mountain View property I know it's a pretty complex process and and it took us a long time to develop the policy and then get to the point where we execute a master license agreement so if there's any questions that mr. Lewis or I can answer I was trying to be as quick as possible to give you an overview of how the process works board members do you have any questions yes would you be able when you're thinking about picking a

[01:37:47] school or an area where where you're gonna put the tower can you send us that information ahead of time to review is that possible so we don't select the location we're really facilitating it we the every Latin County Public Schools property was listed in the master license agreement as for consideration of a cellular tower location and then based on the service provider's need in the community or the connectivity or in some cases life safety communications various things drive the need

[01:38:26] for them in the various areas of the county and then the proposals are brought to us through the master license agreement and then we facilitate the process for approval or denial by the school board um are there any that were denied that you did not go ahead and and put a tower there have been a few there hasn't been one that i recall that the school board actually rejected the proposal for however there have been multiple that through the course of this um process um the the proposal

[01:39:04] was withdrawn for various reasons um is it because of community involvement um sometimes uh sometimes i mean yeah please so as mr stocks pointed out there's a the company that milestone communications that has the that we have the master license agreement with they are by contract on the hook so to speak to manage the entire process and and part of that process they have to go through the county special exception or commission permit process and go that so when when

[01:39:42] we go to the community meetings they will gauge the community feedback and sometimes they just decide it's not worth their time or their efforts to do that and so to your earlier question they will pick a site and it's also interesting to note that that this company actually really just owns the tower and they then they sell services on the tower to different carriers and and then we get some of the revenue from that, and that's all part of the agreement.

[01:40:08] So as they evaluate where they're going to put a tower, they look at where the signals are strongest and where they're not and where it's going to be the best market for them to have carriers come on there. So if they have a place that's overladen with different services, there's not going to be any business to do that.

[01:40:28] So as they go through that process, they may voluntarily pull out just based on the community feedback they have and think you know it's not worth it and so that but that's that becomes their decision sorry if you have any company coming up you'll let us know ahead of time this is an anticipation of two proposals that are coming up in future finance and operations meetings are we able to see those proposals ahead of time so I will say ahead of time is as soon as we get them you get them and so the community they they bring them to us and we we will take a look at the site

[01:41:03] and say okay you want to do this on this particular school site our engineers will go out and say you know this is a better place for us utilities access those types of things and then we bring it to this committee to be evaluated so um yeah you will definitely get that um as soon as we have a package ready to go the community means not done before they are okay so um we'll work that out so right now there is a community meeting that they typically hold before we come here so that you can get feedback but we'll make a point to make sure you're aware of that thank you i know this kind of

[01:41:40] brings us into the next one um so if there's no more questions we'll just continue on to item 6.11 um which is revision of the policy 6350 wireless network facility co-location mr's mr stocks do you want to continue yes thank you very much um so this policy is up for review through our LCPS policy review cycle.

[01:42:06] And it has been reviewed previously by the previous Finance and Operations Committee. And it was tabled as their term was coming to end and they wanted this policy to carry through to you guys. There are a number of grammatical and non-corrections.

[01:42:32] And then there are also two instances that I would like to point out where a language has been added to the policy to address two specific items. And the one is, if you have your red line version open, I have here lines 40 through 44.

[01:42:57] This language was added by Division Council to offer the superintendent an opportunity should the criteria above that's outlined and specified, should there need for lcps to have a tower installed on school property present itself he has the the superintendent or destiny has the ability to bring that forward to the school board if it doesn't check all those boxes or any of those boxes so if there's an opportunity for lcps to add

[01:43:30] a co-located cellular tower on a lcps property that we feel is is not maybe necessarily meeting that criteria but but lcps has a um identifiable benefit where it could be brought to the school board for their consideration as an example item four says they can be effectively integrated into currently existing man-made structures and or natural features such as light poles or trees so if we have a site that that we would have to put the tower out in the middle of a field somewhere that may be a situation where this particular proposal doesn't meet that item but

[01:44:09] we we're going to bring it forward for your consideration anyway if that makes sense well talking about that it says the previous one was effectively integrated this means that it doesn't have to be is that correct yes and so I will say that part of the application process they'll have drawings and sketches and views from the neighborhoods and they'll do line of sight drawings to let us know so that when they do their presentation that everyone knows from where what areas of a particular development can the tower

[01:44:48] even be seen how tall will be above the treetops those types of things so you'll have a full understanding of whether or not it is effectively integrated or can be effect is integrated into the natural surroundings and well that obviously you'd be the judge of that board members you have any other questions if I may I yes one more section that was additional language that I just like to draw your attention to to make sure that we discuss. This language was added, I believe,

[01:45:26] at the request of the previous Finance and Operations Committee. This testing is done annually and reported to LCPS, but wasn't captured in policy. Anything that is constructed has to be within FCC requirements and testing and emissions and anything that they have any rules or regulations on so that testing is done in fact there's monitoring equipment on the towers where if they're out of compliance at any point in time there's alarms and things that notify those providers or the contractor but we

[01:46:00] receive reporting of testing annually and this just states in policy that that's required that we now receive it that was already in place just not in language and policy okay I guess I have some I mean looking at these factors for consideration there are things that I don't know that I would want that I think are non-negotiable including like health and safety security all those kinds of things there there are some of these factors for consideration for me

[01:46:36] that are not negotiable if there was a way that we could delineate what which factors we would be willing to overlook I guess is what I'm thinking so right so keep in mind that the board has the final decision whatsoever and what we're what we're saying is these are things that are considered when a site is chosen we may or may not identify any or all of them in there but when we come here we will make sure that we identify each of those and what you know is there

[01:47:13] a compelling reason for us to bring something that didn't match any of these I don't think we're gonna find any that doesn't match any of those so when you talk about the health and safety considerations that's one of the reasons testing was put in because you know once the thing is up there the health and safety is considered by the fact that we are there are standards that these towers have to comply with and so the company that's presenting them to us are telling us they're going to comply with all these things and then they have to prove it to us and so that's one that i can't imagine we would ever say is not that's a that's going to always going to be a non-negotiable because we're always going to have to comply with

[01:47:48] the test any other questions yes I just wanted to clarify but the language the way it's written would suggest that the superintendent wouldn't have to do that so I guess maybe we do need to tighten up that language a bit and also just make it clear that it goes to the full board I guess for if I see that in in B so I understand that but just I hear what you're saying that you know hopefully we would all consider health as a non-negotiable but when you write it this way the discretion of superintendent may not so want to close

[01:48:25] that loop if possible yeah and we'll talk as mr. stocks pointed out this this language came to us from mr. Allen from division counsel's office and so we'll we'll check on that and I think really always it is saying what it's meant to say is we may bring to you a proposal that may not provide all that but we're going to explain all that when it gets here it's still your decision so the superintendent is not being given permission to put up a cell tower he's only been given permission to bring the proposal to you for approval I think we

[01:48:59] can I can re look at that with mr. Allen okay great yes mrs. Griffiths and I wanted to echo what ms. Chernoff had mentioned a discretion of the superintendent it is redlined I think we should amend that as to even though you feel it means it's still gonna come to us it should be it should be rewritten as discretion of the school board and not the superintendent and that's my suggestion and I will look to my colleagues you know yay or nay on that

[01:49:36] one thank you I'd like to get consideration from legal counsel in terms of what the implications of that are and what that means before I make that decision but I guess you guys are gonna keep going and FNO so well this can come back for another information right next time this can I mean we can decide that this comes back for information again next time as opposed to going to action if that's okay is there is there a time limit on this one no well one thing to keep in mind is we do have a couple proposals coming in but the current policy is in place so we could we could evaluate based on the

[01:50:13] current policy so I don't see a big difference to that but I do recognize and I appreciate the comments that in this the way it's written right now it doesn't say that it's approved by the school board so we'll find a way to to work with that and make sure it's clear that the superintendent is only proposing it and the school board is approving it so we we're hearing and making clear that when he proposes it that there's a a very explicit this is the criteria that we are not that it doesn't meet if that makes it absolutely and to be clear we'll be

[01:50:50] his designees and we'll be here with the proposal and so that's so well we we're hearing you loud and clear and so we'll make sure that we we cover that in those presentations if I may I do also want to point out the prior committee also had a lengthy conversation about including language that established a minimum distance from a residence or a school to a tower in our research we found that that is actually prohibited by law and so we have taken that out so cannot arbitrarily pick a distance from that and so that's why you don't see that if you were here for that if you heard that conversation before and we've

[01:51:27] taken that out and didn't present it and that information is attached from the previous board item for your review I'll also add that this will not be coming back immediately because we do have to post it to the LCPS website for community feedback for the required duration so then we'll bring it back to you guys as an information item with the community feedback and the other committees that may be related. So there'll be additional information that we gather before we bring this back to you guys. Can we do that before we, can we? We're going to come back before we do that.

[01:52:02] We want to get a closer for you before we send it out to the community. That would be great, since it's not really time sensitive necessarily. Okay, thank you for that. Okay, can we move on to agenda item 7 new business is there any new business for tonight no business seeing no more business the May 7th 2024 meeting of the LCPS school board finance and operations committee is now adjourned thank you for your work and for staying over and drive home safely

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