Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Student Services Committee Meeting, Thursday, August 22, 2024

Date: Thursday, August 22, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 41m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1001821364?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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[00:01:34] good evening everyone good evening everyone and welcome to the August 22nd 2024 meeting of the Student Services Committee I am Ann Donahue board member for at-large the chair of this committee I appreciate all of you being here and taking an interest in the health of our division a couple of initial reminders this meeting is being audio recorded it is not being video recorded it is not being live streamed, but it is being audio recorded.

[00:02:11] The recording will be available on the LCPS website in the coming days for anyone to listen to who would like to listen to it. And please speak into microphones if you are speaking. We will start with the second item on our agenda, which is public comment.

[00:02:30] And we currently only have one speaker signed up for public comment, but I still have to read through all of the advisories. Thank you for engaging with the school board through the public comment process. The school board welcomes comments from Loudoun County residents and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system.

[00:02:50] Speakers must limit comments to the time allotted. Based on the number of speakers in the agenda this evening, our one speaker has been allotted three minutes 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.

[00:03:10] Please remain seated unless arriving, departing, or speaking at the table 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, attempting to speak when not called to do so by the chair, and approaching a speaker or otherwise attempting to intimidate, disparage, or distract a speaker, staff member, or other meeting attendees.

[00:03:36] Speakers should refrain from vulgarity, obscenities, defamation, profanity, or other like breaches of respect, nor may speakers target, criticize, or attack individual students and/or individual division employees during public comment. Speakers should communicate those concerns to their school principal or an appropriate school official.

[00:03:52] The school board requests that comments on an individual student or employee related matter not be shared at public meetings where the disclosure could violate applicable confidentiality requirements. Speakers should face us and direct their comments to the committee. Per LCPS policy 2520, members of the school board will not answer questions or respond directly to the public during the public comment period.

[00:04:13] Violations of decorum or civility by any meeting attendee may result in the chair directing staff to remove the attendee from the remainder of the meeting. Repeated or persistent violations of decorum or civility by the audience may result in on the decision of the chair, public comment being tabled until a later point in the meeting's agenda, limiting the number of attendees in the meeting room during public comment for safety reasons or the public comment period ending for the evening.

[00:04:37] If you have materials for us, they should be given to one of the admin officials prior to now, I guess, the start of the meeting. Please provide extra copies, but under no circumstances may the speaker approach the table where the committee is sitting.

[00:04:54] With that, I think everyone here knows all of us, but again, I am Anne Donahue. With me is Chair Melinda Mansfield of Dulles District, Ms. Carrie LaBelle, Catofton District, And not on the committee, but joining us for today is the representative from Ashburn, Mrs. Dina Griffiths.

[00:05:10] Thank you for being here, Mrs. Griffiths. And with that, our first and only speaker is Nicole Bono, Ms. Bono.

[00:05:41] - Hi, hello Student Services Committee and others here. I wanna speak to you. I'm here to implore you to amend School Board Policy 8420 to allow self-carry for the oral medication, chytocortisone, an injectable form, solucorta from my son, Lucas Bono, and other students living with adrenal insufficiencies to quickly administer this life-saving medication.

[00:06:09] During an adrenal crisis, every minute matters. Lucas was born with a rare genetic condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, also known as CAH, an adrenal insufficiency where his body does not produce cortisol.

[00:06:26] At two weeks old, we rushed him to Children's Hospital, and since then he has taken hydrocortisone daily. Students with CAH have been growing up learning how to treat their medical condition at home, and this is the next step in empowering them to have the agency to treat their medical condition at school and prepare them for entering the real world.

[00:06:46] Allowing students like Lucas and others in Loudoun County Public Schools to do this could save their lives. Today, Lucas entered his freshman year at both Independence High School and the Academies of Loudoun. He will be on the bus for 30 minutes sometimes, attending after-school activities and currently would be without Cellucor TIF readily available.

[00:07:11] Student Services Committee, I greatly appreciate your support in amending this bill and empowering my son and other students affected with adrenal insufficiencies to be their own medical advocates. Thank you so much for your consideration.

[00:07:41] now we move on to item number three on our agenda which is approval of the meeting minutes from the May 16th and June 20th 2024 meetings of this committee committee members have you had a chance to review the minutes unless there are any concerns or corrections to be noted I will entertain a motion to approve I move to approve the draft minutes on macy for May 16th and June

[00:08:17] 20th 2024 I second the motion motion has been properly moved and seconded all those in favor please raise your hand and say aye I seeing no opposed that motion passes unanimously with all members present now we will move on to the first of our four information items student services revised policy 5360 for medical homebound instruction miss Richardson thank you chair chair

[00:08:57] Donahue happy first day of school to everyone it's great to be here with you all this evening so we do have two newly revised policies policy 5360 medical homebound instruction and closely connected to that as policy 53 65 home based instruction at this time I will hand it over to mr. Kirk Dolson our director of student services along with another member from his team mr. Kurt mills good evening so as you see before you we do have a policy 5360 which is medical homebound

[00:09:35] instruction and i am going to have kurt mills our home bound coordinator walk us through these two policies what we essentially have done is separated them into the medical homebound instruction policy and then added a separate policy which you will see on the following slide which is policy 5365 which is going to be named if it's approved home-based instruction mr. Mills okay so hello thanks for any of you recognized or anything okay all right thank you sure um so um these policies

[00:10:13] are the homebound policy 5360 was due for renewal um so we just um updated it some additional LANGUAGE FOR CLARIFYING SOME OF THE WORDING IN THERE AND ADDITIONALLY ADDRESSING SPECIFICALLY ATHLETICS OF OUR CITY ATHLETICS WITH REGARD TO THE SECTION ABOUT EXTRACURRICULAR PARTICIPATION.

[00:10:43] SO TYPICALLY WITH HOMEBOUND, HOMEBOUND STUDENTS UNDER AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT NEED to have the ability to attend after-school activities and that would include varsity sports athletics things like that but we wanted to clarify the policy a bit to make sure that we introduced the VHSL requirements in that it previously it sort of seemed like our office was making the decision as to whether a student could or could not attend athletics and that's really

[00:11:18] more of a VHSL decision and we wanted to make sure we updated that piece of it as well additionally with home-based there was a recommendation that we separate because the original version of 5360 included homebound and home-based so there was a recommendation and other local jurisdictions have done it this way as well have separated homebound and home-based into two distinct policies so we wanted to make sure that we reflected that the two services are similar in

[00:11:56] many ways but very different in other ways including how they're initiated are there any questions regarding these two information items that we could entertain or we can answer yes chairman thank you chair Donahue okay so so I downloaded the actual guidance from video II for homebound and there are some things that

[00:12:31] I was wondering why we might not have put them in here one of them being what about if there's a processing delay and it says there's compensatory services that can be looked into if we have an administrative delay of some sort and I don't really see that contemplated in the policy the other thing that I see in here that kind of gives me some pause is on page 5 of 50 well actually let's

[00:13:07] start with 170 page 4 170 on line one yeah 170 on page 4 so it says may be considered I know that we're not that priority or is given to core but may be considered we're already considering so why can't we just say shall be considered you know it's still a consideration but instead of may and we might consider it let's just go ahead and say we should maybe consider it should or should consider it still considered the other thing is on page on one's line 178 the

[00:13:46] up to one hour so I read that in here I realized that this is still subject to IEPs right so it can be up to one hour however I think that the these hours may not be applicable in all instances the guidance says that there is minimum hours of one hour eight hours and two hours so if we could be sure to make sure that it's not up to one hour it's only up to one hour if the IEP team

[00:14:22] decides that is that correct yes yes that is correct so I'm wondering if we could re-look at that area I'm just before we get to amendments and things like that I kind of want to just no that's fine that's why it's an information I'm sorry just jump right in okay so then 195 through 200 I'm looking at the guidance here and here it says it's all kind of negative you know it's not intended to supplant the school instruction nor guarantee that the

[00:15:00] student will progress academically or meet graduation requirements on time in the guidance it says homebound instruction is intended to make every effort to ensure academic progress and and you know I think that there's a difference of expectation in that than what we have here I understand that it's not you know it's not a substitute for course credit that must be earned according to a class requirements I see all of that in this guidance to what homebound instruction is not I'm just wondering if there is something that we

[00:15:35] can put in that homebound instruction is especially when we're looking at IEPs because it's kind of funny when you're saying oh we're not gonna we're not looking for academic progress when that's what your IEP is right and you mentioned VHSL are we just looking at high school sports are we also looking for like all the other VHSL things like the drama and theater and all the rest of that it would include VHSL would include all of everything that VHSL already includes which is correct you're right there are some fine arts events as

[00:16:11] well that are attached to VHSL could we could we put that in there somewhere as opposed to just athletics okay and then so that is medical homebound and home bound and home based instruction I kind of have similar kinds of things again like make online 27 may be considered as opposed to shall be instruct and considered and I don't see a separation of special education for this as well

[00:16:47] are we going to do that or is that just understood because we have separation here certainly so we can certainly build in the same separation can I just get a point of clarity I'm sorry to take you back to the medical homebound yes ma'am instruction policy when you were referencing athletics and VHSL were you looking at item 12 starting on line 203 to 208 is that the section you wanted us to add some additional clarity there yes ma'am okay just want to make sure I was

[00:17:20] marking up the right section and then yes ma'am so chairman field are you saying specifically lines 207 and 208 do you want it to say students participating in high school sports and other activities yeah because this already like above in 12 it references extracurricular activities more generally including sports but then lines 207 and 208 only reference sports right and the Virginia High School League is not just sports that that was my thought thank

[00:17:56] you yeah we can look at and revising that paragraph to make it more inclusive yeah just and then thank you and then I guess that's really kind of all my notes right that was a lot sorry but that was just kind of my thinking when I was looking at the guidance and trying to put it into here yeah thank you for entertaining me absolutely thank you did you have any specific suggestions

[00:18:30] questions concerns about the home base similar things like taking out the special education part and making the kind of a separate section like they did here as well as it's kind of two coins of the same thing homebound instruction you have your medical and your administrative and then you have you know it's they're kind of combined but they're kind of not yes now chair Mansfield on your copy of home based instruction section 2 is pertaining to students receiving special education services so we have broken it out do you

[00:19:10] think we need for home based were you asking us to have a separate section for medical home bound we don't have a separate section identified like a subsection but it is addressed under item 4 letter E is really kind of that whole section for students with disabilities if you look at section four on the medical homebound instruction policy does do you think we just need more clarity next in number four so that it specifically says students

[00:19:46] receiving special education services similar to how we have spelled it out for home based okay that's why I didn't jump out at you got it yeah just to be Consistent

[00:20:14] Okay, thank you very much mr. Tocin and mr. Mills Well being sent out for community feedback and review, I mean, I think we're yeah I mean we're gonna want to have CX and thoughts on it too since it really it affects them. Knowing that even if it's on action, we'll still might have it on action for the next day. We might, but at least if we want to vote on it.

[00:20:54] To keep moving in? Yeah, okay. Great. Well, thank you very much for the presentation, and we would like to have this back on the next agenda as an action item with the recommended changes and any community feedback that we may receive. Okay, so does that also cover item 4.02 on our agenda since you kind of addressed home medical homebound and home-based all right i don't want to be skipping anything um all right then moving on to item 4.03

[00:21:32] revisions to policy 8420 on student medication ms richardson and or mr dolce yes thank you very much student medication policy 8420 is up for revision at the request of the superintendent We have expanded the self-carry of the medications that students in our schools are able to self-carry.

[00:21:54] I will now pass it off to Mr. Kirk Dolson and Mrs. Jeannie Kloman for additional information. So as you can see on the slide, we have some changes. I am not going to enumerate those for you. They're specifically changing some grammatical pieces when you change the language.

[00:22:16] With me tonight is also Ms. Jeannie Kloman, who is our Student Health Services Supervisor. And I will ask her to walk us through some of the changes and some of the suggestions that we have heard about. And we heard about one this evening. So, Ms. Clement.

[00:22:31] One of the changes that we suggested is the addition of allowing students with cystic fibrosis carry their pancreatic enzymes. I'm sorry, could you speak up?

[00:22:48] Can you not hear me? I apologize. Nobody ever tells me they can hear me. I'll start over. One of the suggestions that we had or changes we suggest is adding the ability for students with cystic fibrosis to carry their pancreatic enzymes, which needs to be taken when they ingest food so that their body can absorb the nutrients.

[00:23:18] An additional drug that we would like consideration for students to carry is, as Ms. Bono said, hydrocortisone for students with central adrenal insufficiency. The students take a scheduled dose in the health office, but we are asking if they could carry their emergency stress dose as well as their solucor test, which is injectable and also administered in emergency, to maintain homeostasis for these students if they become ill, severely injured, or under undue stress.

[00:23:58] The next drug that we suggest that students may be able to carry is naloxone. We would like for the students to be trained and certified. They should be trained and certified.

[00:24:16] And keep the medication in its original container and not alter the device in any way. we ask that they immediately notify a staff member if they administer this drug while on school grounds are there any questions a couple thank you very much for that information you're welcome I'm I'm very pleased to see these proposed changes I think these will be really good measures for our schools and

[00:24:51] our students I do have I have a question first can you please say a little bit more about what the difference is between hydrocortisone and Salu Cortef and what they're used to treat. They're both steroids. Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?

[00:25:14] Swallow. Now you can hear me? Okay. They are both steroids. One is taken orally and if the student's not able to ingest it orally, if they're too sick to ingest it orally or they're confused and unable to swallow, then we can administer an injectable form of the steroid, which stands in place of the cortisol that their body, other people without this disease, their body makes cortisol.

[00:25:45] So this stands in for the cortisol under stress. Thank you. And then my other question, my other question is, I don't see in here that there are any age requirements or restrictions on any of these you know self-carry provisions you know may not be applicable to elementary students or or anything like

[00:26:18] that so I although there are for the self-carry the road the doctor requirements I I was curious with the the part the the new added section for for students self-carrying naloxone was there thought when your staff was putting this proposed amendment together was their thought about should this be limited to high schools or should it be limited to middle schools and if so what was your thought process in coming to to this proposal which which I think does

[00:26:54] not seem to be limited to certain school levels or ages of the students chair Donahue thank you for that question mrs. Coleman if I'm correct don't you must must be 16 years of age to be trained from to carry naloxone that's correct okay so we will add that AIDS but age specification thank you and that that's helpful I see here that we already require that students have to be trained in the administration of naloxone which I also think is necessarily important but it's helpful to know that that's the individual is only eligible to receive the training if they're they're 16 so crack as a

[00:27:34] practical matter students only high school students would be that addresses my questions I was wondering if we could put on the our new policy that we just passed the AED and the CPS 6640 as a reference on here because it does have we don't have that on that that's a great idea the other thing was this brings me some concern permission to self-carry or self-administer may be

[00:28:11] limited revised or evoked by the principal or designee that gives me some pause could you explain to me what could you give me in circumstance in where they might restrict medication or not that's a bad that's that wasn't said right and they would restrict or limit or revise a permission to self-carry or self-administer from a student sure um in the example that mrs Clemen gave about the digestive enzymes for students who have cystic fibrosis, since it

[00:28:50] is a tablet that you would usually open or sprinkle on top of your food. If I'm a student that carries that and I'm in the cafeteria and I decide to sprinkle it over here on your food and over here on your food, I have abused how that is supposed to be used.

[00:29:06] And so if I am found to be in violation of the appropriate use of that medication that is only prescribed for me it would be at the discretion of the building principals to meet with the student to meet with the family and to discuss the appropriate expectations again and maybe the restriction is you know what you're gonna have to come to the office to have that administered and then you can go back to the cafeteria while we have been very thoughtful about the medications that we're going to allow that we're asking for students to be able to self carry with knowledge that they are mostly harmless to those of us that do

[00:29:42] not have these deficiencies, you still must utilize the medication appropriately and as prescribed for you. Okay, so my child carries an EpiPen. I don't know of any child who would be injecting another kid with the EpiPen. So why are we thinking about this here? This has been common language. It has been in the policy. We wanted to highlight it so that even though we are expanding the use or the ability for students to self-carry if they abuse their privilege to self-carry their

[00:30:21] medications then we might have to rethink other plans for them because it's really about the safety of all students and so if I'm misusing the medication prescribed for me and okay the first time is the counseling I'm talked to make sure I'm clear on the expectations right but then if I keep abusing the ability now we don't think that any of our students will certainly we we do not but we do have to give our principals and building leaders the ability to maintain safety for all the students that they have to serve

[00:30:54] is there some way we could clarify that by saying permission to self-carry and or self-administer may be limited revised or revoked by the principal if the privilege of carrying it is misused and that would make it perfect otherwise you

[00:31:25] might have the same confusion and then I would like to also know what how that's tracked how would that be tracked would that be an assess I mean you know would that be written down somewhere where they report somewhere I definitely think we would use our student information system to document a parent student conference about the violation of this policy so I certainly feel more

[00:32:04] comfortable with the if that privilege is abused then yes we would principals would work with students and families to meet we would we typically document conferences and our student information system so there would be record I saw a

[00:32:35] a hand in the audience and I recognize you. I would be highly uncomfortable revoking someone's ability to carry medication so I think it would be good like I sure leave it within my purview but I think it needs to have something like in consultation with Ms. Cloman's office. I apologize could you identify yourself? Oh hi I'm Doug Anderson principal at Riverside. Thank you. So I wouldn't want to just singly like you abused it I'm taking it away because who knows if it's life-saving they're carrying it for a reason so I would really want to consult with my experts before we did anything come up with something alternate that

[00:33:14] still would work before I unilaterally got rid of something I totally appreciate that and if there's language that we can put in there that with in consultation with the parent and I don't know student health services something like that so that we have a real plan in place that would make me thank you very much I agree I think that would make me feel more comfortable it kind of gave me a you know it does say consultation with the students parent or

[00:33:49] guardian will occur before any limitations restrictions or a school based decision is made to revoke the student permission to self-carry and or self-administer a rescue inhaler epinephrine injectable insulin glucogen pancreatic enzymes hydrocortisone or solucortep so we do have that in there that parents will be involved in this decision I also like the addition of involving health services to figure out the best way to

[00:34:24] protect the health of the student who has the need to self-carry and balance that with the safety of the rest of the students because that's also a time I think that that's the education part the nurse can come and say look this is what you're doing when you're doing this and more education for that kid I think would be good as well just a learning experience

[00:34:57] nalaxone is that for drug overdoses I have a couple questions on that who's offering the training to the kids that are going to carry it are we going to keep track of the kids that are carrying it and also data as far as if it helped that they had that they are carrying these items to maybe help another student I'd like to see data on that but also at the same time while I I

[00:35:31] understand why we want students to carry it I also feel like it could be a license for them to say hey I can take drugs and then you know I'll have the stuff on me so this is very serious so I would like to see more data on who who's training who's carrying it and data in a year or so you know was it helpful for students to carry it thank you thank you mrs. Griffiths for your additional questions since the student services committee is composed of the

[00:36:09] three board members we will follow up in in writing with a formal school board update to all of you regarding the answers to those questions thank you thank you very much is this going to be offered to all students or are there special requirements before we give them permission to carry Knox Naxx Naloxone Naloxone yes this is come when you're going to answer that question we have determined that you must be 16 years of age or older to participate in the training this is Coleman are there any other factors that need to be considered

[00:36:48] we we did not include any other factors that the student has had their training When you're trained, you receive a dose, and you therefore know how to use it appropriately.

[00:37:05] There's hands-on practice for some classes that folks can take. Others are online, so there's multiple ways that one can be trained and obtain a dosage after the training. So LCPS is paying to provide all our 16-year-olds and older, if that happens to be the case with this.

[00:37:30] Who pays for it so that the training is free? No, I'm talking about the dosage. It's it's free. Okay And miss the ball specifically the training would be only for those who volunteer

[00:38:06] Thank you, Ms. Donoghue. We are going to do a little bit of a shift because I have some friends from different departments that are going to help me through this presentation. With me this evening, to Ms. Richardson's right, is Gabrielle Carpenter.

[00:38:23] She is our Student Services Coordinator. I also would like to invite Elaine Lehman, who is the Director of Elementary Education, and Mr. Derek Ferry, who is the Director of Athletics and Student Activities, to come up to the microphones. And then Ms. Donna Smith, who is our Director of Procedural Supports, will also be joining us at some point for the presentation.

[00:38:48] We also do have some school representatives, because I think a lot of your questions, you might enjoy hearing some real-life principal comments on the special permission process. And we have Doug Anderson from Riverside High School, principal of Riverside; Scott Phillips, who is the principal of Eagle Ridge Middle School; and Brian Blueball, who is the principal of Algonquian Elementary School.

[00:39:10] So to begin our presentation, we are going to start with a little background, history and timeline of the special permission process in LCPS. And I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Carpenter to give you that outline of our policy as well as the history of the policy in Loudoun County Public Schools.

[00:39:27] Okay. Thank you, Kurt. Policy 8155, school assignment, also known as school choice. Can everyone hear me okay? Alrighty. special permission basically students can request to attend the school of his or her choice by special permission for one academic year based on space availability the following conditions have to be met there must be sufficient capacity existing at the school or grade level in the case of elementary schools

[00:40:03] or in special education programs or classes at any school level for the student to do so without causing or exacerbating overcrowding or an overflow situation or potentially incurring additional costs to the school system so some historical information we found out in our research that special permission actually began in lcps in 1970 and the following factors for consideration at that time included these elements the residence changes during the year undue

[00:40:40] hardships, instructional programs, overcrowding, move-ins, move-outs, tuition, moves outside of the county, and actually race. There was no appeal process. The offices who reviewed the policy at that time was the planning office and pupil services. Moving forward to our latest and current revision of the policy, A-155, that was the year 2023, and the factors for consideration now are is approval is based on capacity and/or renewals.

[00:41:18] Parents are asked to specify the reason for the request, but it does not affect approval decision. And the offices for review, planning, student services, elementary education, and special education.

[00:41:34] The appeal process for denied request was adopted in 1978, and the current revision for administrative appeals, 2016. And then the timeline for special permission, it's pretty long and detailed, so I won't go step by step other than to say it begins in January, maybe December, because the planning office at that time will give us some preliminary numbers that we can work with, but we don't publish them until she gives us a final.

[00:42:08] And then in January, the real work begins when we start our meetings with the Department with DDI, SPED, and other departments so that we can review our upcoming processes, dates, and develop a parent communication plan that we will send out at various periods to make sure parents are apprised and updated and understand the policy and the process before the window opens on April 1st.

[00:42:37] Moving through step three, requests are reviewed and processed within 30 days. other requests kindergarten students are not processed until no later than August 1st for elementary level requests the data is different again the request is based on the space that is available in the grade level at that point moving on to step four through step eight it's information regarding the application

[00:43:11] process that we review making sure that the employee the school-based employee actually works at the requested school and once it's determined that they that they do we can go ahead and process that application if not the applicant the application is then I guess stayed until April 1st when the window opens and then the parent can apply with everyone else the employee can apply with everyone else during that time we do have renewal requests at the middle and high school if students attended a middle school in sixth grade then they will automatically be approved for seventh and eighth grade if they apply

[00:43:51] during renew during the renewal window from April 1 through April 30 same with high school if they applied in ninth grade and were approved then they will be approved through senior year if they apply during the renewal window even it even if it is an over enrolled school keeping in mind attendance and behavior is a component of special permission and even though you are a renewal student those things must be in place or the school or our office could resend the special permission. After the June 30th

[00:44:25] deadline we do accept outside the window special permissions through July 31st. At that point anyone applying for special permission during the outside the window request regardless of what school they apply to regardless of whether they were a renewal student it will be denied and they will have to appeal um in order to have the opportunity to attend that school those appeals are reviewed by the director of student services and or the school board depending on the circumstances the same steps apply and we try to get them all finished before school year opens but

[00:45:03] it gets really tight going through the july 31st deadline and then step seven we continue to do changes throughout the years so students who move in and out during the school year can remain at their current school or they can move to the upcoming school with the appropriate documentation again appeals appeal requests are decided within 10 within 30 days of the appeal but again sometimes

[00:45:36] that process goes into the school year so i'm going to go over some data and i do want to thank Thank Dr. Dave Blakelock from our research office for helping us compile this data.

[00:45:52] The first slide that you see here is just giving you some information as Ms. Carpenter just explained that we do allow staff members to apply for special permission earlier than we do other constituents within LCPS. Now also understand that that 80, let's just say 88 percent from the school year may include actually does include staff members that did not meet the March 1st March 30th deadline so those staff members are then also allowed to apply for special permission after March 30th just like anyone else would be um so right now you

[00:46:29] see that 85% of the special permission requests have occurred after March 31st and I also just want to point out that when we look at these numbers we're talking about less than 5% of our total student population is is entering into the special permission process so that's just another data point that I wanted to point out um so when we have students apply for special permission we ask for the reasons that they are actually entering into the special permission process and so here you have a table that enumerates the past three years and

[00:47:08] And you can see it's very consistent with the convenience to work or travel being one of the highest, as well as instructional suitability, which would include social, emotional, and mental health. We did want to delve into the additional reasons piece.

[00:47:29] And so in that, you see that that might also include that a sibling is being requested to attend the same school. There might be a fine arts or extracurricular activity that one school offers that another does not, and/or the current school is over-enrolled and they're seeking a smaller environment.

[00:47:51] The next slide takes it even a little step further, and when parents select "other," we wanted to delve into that a little bit and find out exactly what "other" might mean. So here we analyzed the text analysis, the box that they can fill out, and we went through and try to calculate and categorize all of the other reasons and again that is just there for your own edification and we have really the main reason that a

[00:48:29] lot of people say other is to continue enrollment in their school or their cluster so all of you have been through the process just remember as Miss Carpenter pointed out that if you are a sixth grader and you enter into special permission that does not mean that you will be able to attend the high school that feeds that the high school that feeds into that middle I'm sorry the middle school that feeds into that high school it is not a guarantee because some of our schools are already over enrolled and then the next slide we do

[00:49:04] have it broken down by a special education status so you have students with disabilities and students without disabilities again it looks very similar to what you saw with the employee versus non-employee but I promise you that the data is not that the same it's we've broken it down by students with disabilities and students without disabilities and then here you have your approval status so those are you see the pending because we do have an upcoming appeals hearing on Monday so you do have that broken out for you for

[00:49:44] the last three years. And those approvals can occur at any level. It can be approved just because there's space in the grade or there's space in the school. It can be approval from my office or it can be an approval through the school board itself. And then finally for the data, you have three years of your school board appeal decisions. I see Ms. Mansfield very entertained by this. We're a lot meaner than anyone else.

[00:50:13] so again interesting information and data for you all to consider as you look at this this process not only as a committee but also as a full school board so now we're going to move into elementary secondary and special education information we're going to talk to you a little bit about the challenges and some of the processes and I'm going to turn it over to miss Elaine Lehman our director of elementary education thank you very much thank you all for having me miss Carpenter referred to there was a slide a while back that talked about the other offices with whom her office

[00:50:51] consults on these decisions and you might have noticed it said elementary but it didn't say middle and high and that's because the process is very different at the elementary level due to the reasons that she also shared but we'll just go a little bit more deeply into here so at the elementary level special permission availability is determined by each school each grade and each classroom in that grade so obviously that varies school to school how many teachers there are at each grade how many students enrolled so we look at that really specifically at every school the enrollment date data changes daily due to students moving in to the area program placement for various programs

[00:51:30] and all these things are ongoing well after the special permission window opens at the beginning of March special permission policy states that we approved in 95% but because appeals are approved to 100% that conflicts with the policy and creates a few obstacles for us as we move forward with students just moving into the attendance zone if we're full at 100% in May and students are moving in all summer then they are not able to attend their school of residence so we have regional assignments that sometimes results based on special

[00:52:08] permission and on a variety of other things as well and regional assignments happen throughout the school year and a regional assignment is when a student moves into the attendance zone but there is no more room in that grade level for that student to attend so this the school division provides an alternate school for the student to attend and provides transportation to that location so the appeals process extends the special permission window I think miss Carpenter shared the special permission ends June 30th but then we consider out of window for another another month and then appeals for another 30 days so it

[00:52:42] really never ends it just goes on and on and it starts it's you know thousands at the elementary level a couple thousand special permission requests and appeals and the recent difficulty that has added to the to our current difficulty is we're having trouble hiring teachers so at the at this last month before school starts when school principals are trying to find people to fill their positions and are realizing they're not having any luck we've had to collapse sections which then limits space in the individual school and causes more regional assignments so that's something that we're dealing with right now additional

[00:53:21] impacts but not not as major I'm McKinney Vento students these are our homeless students those are processed in the summer months and they the law the federal law as I learned this year is very strict as to where those students can be placed so we are we are now regionally assigning McKinney-Vento students because the schools that they live closest to are at a hundred percent capacity so now we're having to regionally assign them to yet another school so that's a maybe an unnecessary transition for a student that might already be in a certain amount of crisis we had as you know at the recent school board meeting there were some boundary changes that kind of thing

[00:53:59] impacts staffing and class sizes and sometimes happens after this whole process is is almost complete and then fifth grade renewals was one of the most recent changes to the policy and that guarantees a student who has attended a school on special permission in grade 4 automatically to be able to attend in grade 5 regardless of the capacity at the school so in a few cases we're at a hundred percent in that fifth grader that's on special permission puts us over so I will go ahead and talk about secondary information challenges having

[00:54:35] been a high school principal myself so it is different for secondary middle and high school because special permission is determined by the school's base capacity and the projected enrollment percentages and as Miss Carpenter said those are usually given to us in December or January for the following school year the over-enrolled schools are schools whose enrollment percentages are greater than 95% for all student populations and then those over-enrolled school projections are provided to the Office of Student Services by the Planning Office as I said in December or January and then we present that information publicly on our special permission web page so parents are aware

[00:55:14] of which schools secondary schools are considered to be over enrolled. Enrollment data changes to move-ins and move-outs and placements after the special permission window closes and may cause challenges in student schedules so very similarly to what miss layman was talking about sections that is when a high school principal might have to reach out and ask mr. Richardson to to teach an additional section because there are so many students that want to be in her AP lit class but we don't have enough to create a whole new FTE for

[00:55:49] that that purpose per policy students who enroll in a secondary school are granted the opportunity to return and mr. Carpenter explained this little as well, up to the highest grade in that school, so eighth grade and twelfth grade respectively, unless the family or the school decides to rescind the student's special permission.

[00:56:12] Scheduling does become a challenge for secondary schools, especially for those students who are not current -- when students do not currently roll over into the following school year. We are working with DDI for a solution on this, and we think we have found it.

[00:56:29] So what that means is if you are on special permission at Riverside High School, but your home school is Parkview, and let's say Riverside High School offers ASL and Parkview High School does not, which is possible because of teaching, the students that is at Riverside would not be able to see those ASL classes because they revert back to their home school in our student information system.

[00:56:55] And we feel as though in working with DDI that we have found a solution to that. So it will be much easier for our directors of school counseling, when they are planning for the next school year, that those students, we would presume, will return to the school that they are currently enrolled in.

[00:57:14] The appeal process also causes special permission over the summer months, and as you all know, schools are very busy over the summer. It's probably the busiest time for school administrative teams, because you are planning for the next school year and you're trying to really tighten up your sections and make sure that you do have space for the students who arrive on the first day and then based on the number of special permissions granted at a secondary school like we said it may require schools to add or remove sections to their master schedules during the summer months I will now turn it over to

[00:57:51] Donna Smith to talk to you a little bit about the special education process good evening for students with disabilities when a special permission request is put through the office of special education and the office of procedural support review each individual student needs to ensure that the the to look at determine which caseloads we need to be looking at whether it's a student who only receives speech services or a program level student or a student that's cross categorical so we can look at the staffing standard for each individual staff that would be impacted so that's the first part of the process and then also making sure if they do have

[00:58:29] specialized needs that would maybe require a specialized program that that program exists in the school that the student is asking to attend. So that is one of the first parts of the process that we do for every individual student that is identified as a student with a disability. We look at student enrollment for each school at the time of the request because it changes so quickly throughout this process and I would say especially at the elementary level because elementary schools are so small and they only have you know they're covering sixth grades we have case managers that are covering sixth grade levels from kindergarten to fifth grade and there may only be three or four

[00:59:07] teachers in a building so one student like when we're looking at 95 percent capacity for some schools that could be one student would put them right at a hundred percent and the struggle with that is that we are staffing for where we have projections and where the students are but there's eligibilities that occur throughout the year for the next school year and those primarily happen at the elementary level so it's really hard when we fill a school with capacity at the beginning of the year at a hundred percent capacity for their case managers that doesn't really take into account the new students that are going to be evaluated throughout the school year so that is definitely a

[00:59:41] struggle that we have seen and we do use the Loudoun County Public School staffing standard we do look at the staffing of a 1:10 ratio because that's the Loudoun County staffing standard for cross cross categorical teachers so that really that's a lot less teachers than on a teacher caseload so sometimes there's room in the grade level for an elementary school but not on the special education staffs caseload all right and finally we are going to be

[01:00:15] joined by mr. Derek Ferry to talk about how VHSL also is impacted by the special mission process I'll give you a quick background on the Virginia High School League it is a membership organization made up of policies and procedures and regulations that govern student eligibility for participation in league activities is made up of the current existing public schools and one private school which is a non-boarding school it's Lynchburg Liberty Christian Academy the school board policy 8155 conflicts with the VHSL transfer rule

[01:00:54] for students in grades 10 through 12 requesting transfer under our said policy Virginia High School League does have one exception which is ninth graders, regardless of residency, the school of enrollment as a ninth grader is where they begin their VH cell eligibility. So residency is a determination in that factor. The VH cell also determines that because of our policy, it's a local school division matter and to apply for a waiver or criteria shall be determined by the local school division. LCPS uses the VH cell

[01:01:34] transfer criteria when analyzing requests for appeals. And I will go over the request now or the timeline and schedule for requesting a BHL appeal. Step one, they obviously have to be granted special permission to attend the school that they would like to, either through special permission or instructional suitability. After receiving approval, they have 10 days to apply for a waiver request which is a document that they can fill out online through our let's talk application

[01:02:11] they would then be provided an additional five days to provide any supporting evidence or documentation step four would be a review by after all information is gathered there would be a review by the chief of schools to either render a decision and or in favor or a denial decision And then step five is after notification of that decision, that we would outline the appeals process to the school board under policy 2350.

[01:02:44] I can go into more detail about the criteria that we use, which aligns with the VHL transfer appeals. The reason we chose this is it models the same criteria if a student is transferring from another jurisdiction to Loudoun County Public Schools, they would be under the same criteria that is governed for that process.

[01:03:09] So we've selected that years ago. Actually, in 2019, that was the criteria we started using. I can go through, but it means that it might be a little longer conversation, but I can talk to you what waivers would be considered, which waivers wouldn't be considered, and I can go through the definition of an undue hardship and how we apply that if you have a question.

[01:03:33] if I could I could interrupt briefly I do see that it is 6:30 and I I feel like we are not near the end of this discussion but I wanted to check with the my fellow committee members do we need to wrap this up and continue at another time are you able to stay past 6:30 mr. Dolson do you have any estimate of how much more information you have to present to us we are actually done and And we are waiting your questions.

[01:04:11] I feel like it needs more than like five or ten minutes, to be quite honest, my questions and things like that. So I will say while I was listening to the -- first of all, thank you for putting together this presentation.

[01:04:28] Thank you to everyone who is here to give us this input. I'm finding it incredibly helpful. I was thinking while I was listening to all of you that perhaps we should put this on for information again next time because I know that we asked I know that we indicated some interest in potentially amending the policy but I believe the way that we left it was staff would present us with information first and seek direction from us about where we would perhaps like to see changes in the policy am I remembering that correctly yes that is correct certainly we do not

[01:05:06] have proposed amendments to review now so we need to talk about it was that what you were anticipating miss Richardson yes that's that was what we were anticipating I would however if we could extend by at least 10 minutes like to honor our building principals that have joined us that's what I was gonna hear from them yeah I would like to hear from them and I was also thinking you know if they come back the next time because I think we would it's always nice to pick brain of the people who are actually in the building so as we said earlier uh this evening we have doug anderson from riverside high school scott phillips from eagle ridge

[01:05:44] and brian blueball from algonkian elementary school are you able to stay for 10 or 15 more minutes okay thank you yes please sure um so i guess it kind of goes both ways for me it is a blessing and a curse at times um i do at algonkian um i think a little bit higher than kirk's stats So we're about 20% of our population is special permission.

[01:06:21] So it's high. So I have an exemplary staff. And so it's nice that I depend on it because I would not want to lose them of being cut positions. And we've had some great families. It adds diversity to our school. We've had PTA board members that are at Algonquin on special permission.

[01:06:43] And I've met some wonderful kids and watched them grow, watched them change. So special permission, you're not really separated any certain way in elementary school. And so I would miss that aspect of it. So that's the blessing part of it.

[01:07:00] It does become difficult, as Elaine was saying. The timelines become difficult. Elaine keeps us on our toes with making sure that we're always updating how many students we have in each grade level. The issues that I have at a school like mine is that principals at the elementary level, and I don't know about middle or high, we have planning commission meetings where we're talking about this is what you're projected to be.

[01:07:25] My projections are always under, and that affects staffing, especially for certain things. And I'll give an example of this past year. We were projected at 447, and you get a .5 reading specialist if you're at 450.

[01:07:46] So the projections held tight, that's what you're going to be. and so we lost a point five of somebody who was being there after the first wave of special permissions were approved guess who was over 450 and now I got to hire somebody when I already had a good staff member in the building so those are things that make it difficult on me when I know that my enrollment is going to go up and we're kind of held to those projections I haven't had many issues with students that are on special permission with the chronic absenteeism

[01:08:25] there's times that I'll just have conversations with parents just kind of reminding them that their own special permission and behavior and attendance is a part of it and that usually seems to work. I think it might have been coming right out of COVID. I did have a student with a behavioral problem and I felt the process for a principal to remove a student was difficult, cumbersome. It was a 10-page report that I don't have time to do. It should be as simple as a meeting with a parent that is documented and if things don't get better it's here you go not here

[01:09:01] anymore instead of having principals do a report I don't know if that's still required and that was like three or four years ago don't know if you have any other elementary questions I mean I can sit here and talk take up your whole 20 minutes talking about special permission so you were talking about timelines what would be your desired end point my desired end point I do not like the

[01:09:33] kind of non-window up till july 30th so i think somewhere at the elementary level kind of when school ends in june that it can end because then that way right we already have classes planned um and as as you know we you know i'll give an example also we we have room when because kindergarten families want to know and we have we always do them last that their their approvals last by by August 1st and so we have our kindergartners approved and then what

[01:10:10] happens to an elementary school is that all of a sudden then in August will have some new kindergartners coming in so I was in a situation I have had plenty of room for our special permission kindergarten students and now I'm full in two classes and another class only has three spots left so then if those three spots get filled I would have to send somebody else that moves into the countryside area to a regional assignment so it would be nice if it was pushed up a little bit July to me is just too late it's too late because we've

[01:10:44] already planned classes we have teachers set and things like that you're welcome I'm Scott Phillips I'm the principal at Eagle Ridge I too I'd like to just take a few seconds for my elementary peers I spoke to Mill Run is on our campus and so I spoke to John Corneli who is the principal at Mill Run Mill Run gets 80

[01:11:20] to 90 special permissions every year so they they are a big recipient um and uh his um input was really about kindergarten uh he felt like uh the timeline for kindergarten really they really struggle with that for the same reason uh that brian mentioned in that um it's because of new enrollments right before school starts he's got three sections uh that have 25 kids in them they're they're stuffed right now he lost a staff member in june because of enrollment projections and even if he was granted a staff member now to open a new section he couldn't find one you know finding a

[01:11:57] teacher at this time is for him at least seemed you know it's just not going well recently so for him kindergarten was a special exception i wanted to mention that for him for me at the middle school level this was a relatively new i guess trend for eagle ridge post pandemic we were below capacity and all of a sudden one year we had about 60 special permissions so that was a lot for us we hadn't had that in the past we just had a few staff members you know a few extras and i think as you look across the division you will

[01:12:34] see schools that are targeted for different reasons and they you know like mill run maybe like eagle ridge a lot of ours were instructional suitability for me at the middle school level i'm not really sure what that means that's a parent's euphemism for our perception that your school is better than than my school a lot of times sometimes as brian said i like being the school that that helps a family that we have had a families that have a title nine concern in another school and they can come and it's a fresh start for that student we've had a special education

[01:13:12] students who you know one environment or one school environment wasn't working for them they came to us and we were able to assist in that you know in that situation and many of those are fine I'm always glad to receive students and make that work one of the things for me is is that I feel like principals are officially part of the recommendation process for special permission but practically not really when the when the approvals come for students who have

[01:13:45] been with us for renewals there's a lot of steps for rescinding one and no steps for for us to be involved in an appeal or even to have a voice and whether we have actual space in our school so I struggle with that to me the only other thing that i would say for the middle school level is it's really for us is about staffing we are staffed on enrollment projections special permissions are not generally part of that projection and even if we're granted extra staffing in august because you know we have

[01:14:25] gone over with new enrollments and special permissions combined as kirk mentioned it's very difficult to create new sections and actually have kids move into them without changing entire schedules of kids that have already been scheduled so that's what we struggle with is really the staffing part in my mind if you have certain schools that are receiving a lot of kids on special permission you know trend of that maybe there would be a discretionary staffing or a differentiated staffing towards them that might assist in that the only other

[01:14:59] thing I would say is I am I think I'm the only middle school principal that I'm aware of that's ever won a middle school travel championship and so I've watched the athletics from the eighth grade to the ninth grade so I'm going to talk about that during my son's eighth grade year I was the eighth grade travel basketball coach and his football coach for a YFL and I watched 12 kids who were the best athletes on their middle school teams who did not attend two of our high schools go to two of our high schools primarily to play football and they would have been the best kid at Parkview they would have been the best kid at Potomac Falls they would have been best kid at Riverside they would have been the best kid at

[01:15:39] whatever and knowing those kids well because they were in my son's classes those choices were made specific for athletics as a former coach a high school coach that distresses me that you know that particular choice or that particular option it really does change the dynamics of teams and high schools and how competitive they are and you know so that's another concern I have just as a as a parent in the system and then as a as a principal I would watch that I know who my kids are from being on the blacktop every day with them like

[01:16:16] who my athletes are and I've seen that happen a lot sometimes it's associated with travel teams like for basketball like AU teams and then those kids will go together in a cluster to a certain high school maybe where their AU coach coaches to me that's a that's a problem in this process that you ought to think about or at least look at from a middle school perspective it really doesn't affect me it affects high schools more but it's definitely something that I've seen as as a trend and especially a recent trend in the process really

[01:16:47] that's it unless you have any questions of me I like special permission if you asked me eight years ago I said it's a train wreck but they've made a lot of of changes to it particularly it was a brand new school 10 years ago we had lots of room lots of kids came but the used to be that you weren't guaranteed to come back and so I got very big

[01:17:24] very quickly and I lost like 70 kids that should have stayed with me because once they come they don't leave so they become your students and they should and that's the way they're recognized now so that's a great change the athletic thing can be real you know I watched my starting quarterback play for another team the next year I watched my starting quarterback play for another team so two years both starting quarterbacks went to two different schools doesn't happen as much as it used to or maybe I'm just numb to it at this point but that definitely happens but I think at the high school level I think they've done a good job of recognizing you know like this year I was

[01:18:01] projected to be what 1707 kids and I said well you're not like I always have 130 except for during COVID, 130 special permission kids. I lost 33 kids as seniors.

[01:18:18] I'm gonna get 30 or more kids. I'm at 1,736, so kids now. That's some move-ins, but mostly new special permissions. So I think they do a pretty good job of staffing me correctly and looking at that and leaving those kids, 'cause they look at 'em now as our kids.

[01:18:35] So my biggest problem would be, and I can't remember who said it, was they don't stay on, like, so at the end of the year, know I'm keeping 100 kids let's just say this number we don't see them in the computer they go away all their classes they want to take go if I have a kid from Tuscarora they're back on Tuscarora's roll and we just you know we keep paper copies or on the computer I don't think they write it of what they asked for but they don't go into my course requests so I'm constantly asking my director like does this include our 100 special permission kids because 100 times 7 at

[01:19:12] 700 course requests that could really dramatically change where i'm putting my staffing so that that's concerning it's great to hear that there might be a workaround through ddi that would be fantastic because that's the only thing that gives me gray hair but other than that it's good it's good it's good option for kids to to move on somewhere else my younger son older son didn't want to come to riverside when it opened up excellent idea that would have been problematic probably younger one was like I'll go over to your school and I was like cool and he did and it was great and he was able to you know he got to play sports and all that stuff with his friends and things like that so it was really good

[01:19:51] so you know different sizes fit different people but I think it's good thank you very much mr. Adams and to all the principals I'm very grateful and I usually not supposed to speak on behalf of other board members but I feel confident that I can speak on behalf of my fellow committee members that it's hugely helpful for us to hear directly from you and the reason the only reason why I'm not asking 8 million follow-up questions is just because of the hour that it already is and we're not even quite through our agenda yet I'm actually

[01:20:30] wondering if we should perhaps try to have a work session a committee or a school board what would you like I'm just asking are you just thinking I am I'm thinking that it might be beneficial for us to have another opportunity to really talk and dig into these issues before we give staff specific direction on where we want them to take any changes, prospective changes to the policy.

[01:21:02] Well, as we're talking October-November dates later, I'm also happy to have a separate work session for this committee on special permission. I'm sure other board members will want to attend too, but I'm happy to keep it within your jurisdiction but I I would I would certainly see value in having it as a work session with the full board although I don't I don't want to be

[01:21:37] premature since we have not asked the staff to present us but as you said there's so much to dig into here we got the VHL component we got the the computer component even of the scheduling we have special education to think about I mean this is huge and it's a big octopus and I would like to hear I think I know now having heard from you three gentlemen I I think I would maybe be interested in hearing if if there are particular schools that are seeing a

[01:22:16] lot of students leave because of special permission I would be interested in hearing those perspectives as well as what I heard from our three speakers this evening is that they are generally receiving a lot of special permission students I'd like to hear from the other side of that and I'd like to dig into that special education I mean we had the numbers of how many apply we didn't have the numbers of how many are were approved and I think talking through that appeal process would be valuable because you go it's like a three layer

[01:22:56] thing as well as like there was something I didn't even know about was that if it's Jan July something it's already denied so then you have another 30 days to go through mr. Dolson and then you have another 30 day or is it another 30 days to go to the school board like that seems ridiculous to me so not that it was your Paul you know it's your process or anything I'm just it's late but yeah I am I think there's some huh I think there's a lot to dig

[01:23:28] into here I think this was and thank you for bringing it up chair Donahue is is that something that staff would be amenable to that could be workable if we were to possibly schedule a work session so as not to have our next committee meeting being three hours we're happy to look at schedules and space availability certainly obviously there's still a lot to talk about related to

[01:24:05] special permission which we are not going to get to this evening to be continued thank you very much for the effort that went into all of this information I was curious if the slides that you presented to us are going to be available on board docs going forward so that people can come back and look at them later yes we'll be posting the special permission slides thank you so moving on to item 5 on our agenda for discussion committee meeting dates for October and November I understand that chair Mansfield has a conflict with our

[01:24:43] regularly scheduled meeting date for October and our regularly scheduled meeting date for November falls on a date when many of us will be at the VSBA conference in Williamsburg so as to October chair Mansfield without crying too much is there any possibility that you could join us virtually if you're in a car can you still participate I mean it's not really in a room for WebEx or

[01:25:21] if before you answer that is Richardson if if we adjusted the time but kept that date would that be more would that work better for yourself can I get back to you on that I know we wanted to discuss it today but I'm gonna have to get back to you on that um well you'll still you'll need it for november oh okay i'll change it can we can we follow up on certainly you guys can follow up with us on october but we sounds like for sure

[01:25:56] we need to reschedule the november meeting date we do need to reschedule november um our regular meeting date is scheduled for the 21st which is the thursday um which is not going to work because we'll all be at VSBA I have a committee meeting the Tuesday of that week and also the previous Thursday so I would and we have a full board meeting on the 12th so I would suggest or ask

[01:26:30] my fellow committee members and staff if November 7th might be possibility I think it's okay for me it appears to work for the committee if it would work for staff that should be fine we'll work to secure space thank you very much November 7th at 5:30 so November 7th we

[01:27:05] will meet at 5:30 we will circle back offline for October thank you miss Richardson moving on to agenda item number five number six excuse me new business is there any new business I would like to ask mrs. Richardson where Where we are with our focus groups.

[01:27:29] Just very briefly, are they engaged? Are they busy? What's going on? Thank you, Ms. LaBelle, for that question. So we have issued the request for proposals process. We have gotten vendor applications.

[01:27:45] We have established the internal evaluation committee to review those applications. We have narrowed it down to a fewer, a smaller group of providers, and we are set to do more extensive interviews with those providers and then we should be making a decision within the next two weeks to bring to the full board so the focus groups themselves have not yet started we anticipate about mid-october okay thank

[01:28:12] you very much I just was checking welcome thank you miss Richardson no no our next get regularly scheduled meeting of the committee is September 19th do we want to look at possible dates for a work session before then so our next committee meeting is September 19th if we are interested in potentially having a

[01:28:49] work session before then I was wondering if we should at least discuss dates for committee members that might be workable pending room availability staff availability etc before we not that we have to settle on anything I mean I'm good with the 5th or the 12th at our regularly scheduled time or that well in

[01:29:27] our thing is the 19th so I'm available the 11th the 12th 16th and the 17th and the fourth if we need it what about I have I have a board tour and I think my husband has a dental appointment and we only have one car could you join us

[01:30:02] remotely we did the fifth and if if that doesn't work you said you're available the 12th yep I am also available on the 12th so I think my request to staff would be if we can pull it together for the fifth that would I would find that preferable but it appears that we're also available on the

[01:30:30] 12th if either of those dates will work and if not we'll figure something else out in setting up the work session either for the 5th or the 12th of september specifically for special permission what additional data points would you like to have that were not presented this evening i know that we have a meeting on monday to go over more appeals how many are there mr dolson currently

[01:31:03] there are 14 okay it's not 18 it's okay and they're waiting for you in your mailbox so I mentioned delving more into special education which I think will be helpful I would like to talk more about the appeal process would definitely like to hear from Mr. Ferry more information about VHSL interplay if it's possible as I mentioned I

[01:31:40] would also like to hear if possible from some principals at schools that are losing students through special permission Mr. Dolson so one of the pieces of feedback that I would really like having worked with all of you in the the process itself through the appeals process is how the process is communicated to the parents and so I believe in board Docs you have some PDFs of emails that are sent in response to requests or response into part of the process so that would really be helpful I've heard - well I've heard

[01:32:18] timeline is one thing that you want us to look really look at and explore and I think everyone from the the staff side agrees but then the other part of that is if you all can look and really and I'm asking you kind of pick apart the process so it is a clearer process we are communicating you know within alignment with policy but also that it's not such a guessing game for people both maybe school staff as well as parents who may not know what this is at all within the confines of what you as a board foresee it becoming if that makes

[01:32:56] sense. So I think also I would like on that same vein, what you think could change? What of that process could change? I mean, it's a three-step process. It's lots of timelines. We heard from the principal saying, okay, well, we want it finished by June, you know? So what could that look like potentially if we were going to try? Yeah, and that's a great activity for us to do

[01:33:33] with our Department of School leadership and really delve into some of the intent because I think you I appreciated the the administrator saying that there's some good parts of this and there are some parts that we need to fix and we need to to work on I would say frankly when I first learned about the special permission process last fall I my first reaction was this is stupid and we should get rid of it and but but now having gone through several meetings of the appeals committee and heard the reasons why people are seeking to take

[01:34:10] advantage of the opportunity I have become convinced okay I guess we shouldn't get rid of it completely but it does seem like there are certainly areas of improvement I also appreciated hearing from hearing from the principals saying there are some good parts of this for me from my perspective because I had an impression that it was just burden on them you know but I also appreciate the calling a spade a spade and saying like people are using this to you know for athletic purposes or or for you know other purposes that are not

[01:34:46] really what I guess I don't know what the intent was in 1970 but I don't reasons that I that may not be as just some reasons may not be as justifiable as others in light of us trying to provide the best possible education to the entire and I do have one more question for you the students the families that are on for appeals on Monday.

[01:35:14] Have those students started at their homeschool already and then they have to change? Yes, ma'am. Oh, Lord. Thank you. I think the other thing that we didn't go through is the Title I issue and losing funding if we overburden a school.

[01:35:30] I think that is something that we didn't look into, which was a shocker to me when we were there for the student appeals. And I was like, well, I don't want to lose funding. What am I going to do?

[01:35:44] And as part of digging into special education, my experience and understanding from conversations is a number of appeals, or a number of, I still don't fully understand the process, a number of requests on behalf of special ed students had to be denied, even though if people had their choices, they would have allowed them.

[01:36:13] but I don't know if it's the policy that's written in a way that says... So it's the staffing. It's the staffing standard. So we have to look at the staffing standard for students that have IEPs, and then that is a very different staffing standard than what you might have at a general education setting for high school, for middle school, and for elementary.

[01:36:33] And so you're right, there was room in grades, or there were room in schools, but you had a special education capacity over 120 or 125%. But in some of those cases, if there was no one who wanted to deny the request, but the request had to be denied because of the way the policy is written, which just seemed like a waste of time and energy to have to come to the appeal panel, is that something we could look at changing so that if you wanted to allow those requests, if you would have allowed them if you weren't required by those.

[01:37:09] So as a full board, you'd have to consider changes to the staffing standard. So our LCPS, so we're well within state staffing standard. That's not a problem for LCPS. So this issue isn't about our special permission policy. Nope. It's about the staffing standard for special education for cross-categorical or high-incidence students.

[01:37:28] It's a staffing ratio of 1 to 10. At the building level, we don't let buildings or schools get to caseload averages of higher than 15 points. We have worked with business and finance because we know that students are going to transfer in.

[01:37:44] students are going to be found eligible so we push them to about the 15 point mark for high incident students they typically count as one point in the state regulations as far as the way staffing allocations and ratios are calculated so you would have to consider changing the staffing standard for us to say yes to more students with disabilities utilizing and being approved through the special permission process for specialized programs dependent upon the nature of

[01:38:16] the program the staffing standard is 1 to 8 or 1 to 6 the other thing of us a teacher per grade level at the elementary level I'm happy to do that the the principals also wanted to know about how they can provide more input and what that might look like is something that I would be so interested in just so you are aware part of the the process does include the principal it is

[01:38:52] not as transparent I guess I would say but we do allow principals to advocate for in some cases we also have had principals who have wanted to rescind I will go back and and say that I think it was mr. blue ball who made a reference to something of recension that he wanted to do like six or seven years ago we have improved that process and we do provide principals with language that they can use on a regular basis sometimes I want it to be a little bit more clear as to why we are telling a family they cannot attend the school

[01:39:29] that they think they're going to attend and so that's a conversation I usually have with the principals and what we do is we set that family up just like mr. blue ball made a reference to is have a meeting and explained that okay miss about your son is is missing school on a regular basis and part of the special permission process is attendance and we need to see an improvement and if we do not see an improvement we will we will rescind that and so we have a conversation about what's best for the student but there we do give the

[01:40:00] principal the ability to rescind and with that as I with that do we have to move for adjournment is that just I think does it have to be a motion thank you all for being here I apologize to staff for keeping you so late but appreciate appreciate everything you do thank you all and get home safe

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