Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Specialized Programs & Centers Committee Meeting, Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Date: Tuesday, September 3, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 3m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1006047436?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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[00:01:13] All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call the September 3rd meeting of the Special Programs and Committee to order. My name is Dr. Rasheed, and I am the chair of this committee. We appreciate your presence here today, and the purpose of today's meeting is to, I guess, talk about a couple of information items and an action item.

[00:01:33] So the information we wanted to talk about was any type of update we had for special programs, the environmental science update. I believe we have a transportation update, so some information on that, and then, of course, the LCPS Workforce Summit. And then, of course, we have to make a decision or have an action item on the Hillsborough Charter Academy Lease Renewal, okay?

[00:01:58] So we have to make decisions on that. So before we proceed, we value public input. If there's anyone from the public who wishes to address the committee, fill out a speaker card at the registration table. but I see we have one person open for public comment so we'll now open well we'll now open the floor to public comments if you wish to speak please come forward state your name and limit your comment to one minute thank you welcome thank you I'm Paul Vickers I'm the principal of Hillsborough Charter Academy and today I received in my email an email that is the elementary principals update

[00:02:36] and I'm just going to read the first couple lines from it it says facilities operations will be installing four foot vinyl coated chain link fencing lcps standard and gates at the elementary school cited below installation priority is five-tiered starting with tier one schools and working in order to tier five we anticipate completing the entire project by or before the end of the 2024 25 school year so I responded I looked at the chart and I didn't see HCA listed on there. And I don't know the exact purpose of the four-foot fencing,

[00:03:14] but if it's a safety and security concern, I would hope that we would be considered an important school because we have 144 scholars, students who are all LCPS and 50% of our staff are LCPS employed, 50% are HCA employed.

[00:03:34] Thank you, Mr. Vickers, but your time is up. Thank you, though. I hope that we'll be considered. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thank you to everyone who provided comments, your input is valuable to us. So we need to approve the minutes from our last meeting. Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes, and are there any corrections or additions?

[00:03:52] Okay, so if there's no objections or corrections, I entertain a motion to approve the minutes from August 6th. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay.

[00:04:08] Okay, the minutes are approved. Let's begin by reviewing the agenda. Okay, we can see that here. Are there any adjustments or additions to the agenda that I reviewed previously? If so, please raise your hand and state your proposed change, if any.

[00:04:26] All right. So let's move on to our agenda items. The first item is the Department of Academics, Hillsborough Charter Academy Lease Renewal. I will turn it over to Dr. Ashley Ellis, and she's not here.

[00:04:46] So I'll turn it over to Mr. Slevin to present. Thank you. dr rusheed this item was an information item at the last meeting of the special programs committee in august it's coming back to the committee as an action item to move to the full board for consideration as an information item at their next scheduled board meeting the school board approved the hca charter school renewal agreement at the june 25th 24 meeting accordingly both lcps and hca desire to extend the hca at least to june 30th 2029 so we are here to answer

[00:05:22] any questions if the committee has any thank you mr. Slevin I'd like to ask if there's any questions or comments even though I know this is not an information item it's an action item anybody all right I'll tell I'll entertain a motion to approve this action item for the Hillsboro Charter Academy lease renewal

[00:05:46] do I hear a second second all right so so approved okay I sorry okay so let's go ahead and take a vote yeah all in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay okay all right Labor Day took me all right all right so the motion has passed

[00:06:24] okay so let's move on to our next agenda item which is the special programs update and I will turn it over to mr. seven to present Thank You dr. Rashid miss Catherine Clark our director of academic programs is going to provide an update this afternoon on some information related to our initial admissions data into our special programs we do plan on coming back to this committee in November with with a much more robust program and spreadsheets to take a look at how we're doing in terms of different metrics when it comes to our

[00:07:00] admissions into our special programs but we wanted to do an introductory dive into those numbers and we also want to talk a little bit about early planning for FY26. Thank you, Mr. Slevin. As Mr. Slevin mentioned, our agenda for today is just to do some of that quick data overview for IB, HAMSci, and dual language immersion programs, and again, give you an update on that FY26 budget potential impacts.

[00:07:32] This is our special programs chart that we show you each meeting. For our presentation this afternoon, we will be focusing on the two sections in the middle, proposal phase and the planning phase as mr slevin said we will come back in november with a complete admissions overview including our academies of loudon admission data so just as a reminder we showed this at our last meeting our program admission timeline for all special programs is up here so in march offers for high school programs were sent out followed by our dual

[00:08:12] language immersion programs that were sent out in may ongoing and program enrollment occurred between april and july and then in august we are finalizing that admission data and then here we are today sharing our initial data with this committee again we will come back in november with a more in-depth final admission data so a few reminders about our ib enrollments a student zoned high school as you can see on the right are feeders for both heritage and valley determines their inclusion on the lottery list students from heritage and loudon valley high

[00:08:50] school are automatically have access to this program and are excluded from the lottery process we use a number generator to assign numbers to students on each list with unique results for each school after the lottery deadline any new registrations that come in are placed on the established waitlist based on the order of their submission date and time these charts give a breakdown of the number of students coming to an IB school from each zoned high school so and here is kind of a breakdown of this data a little more

[00:09:26] than what's there so at Heritage High School we had 268 students who initially showed interest we have 45 that accepted we had 223 students who were offered and declined and we have zero students on that wait list at Loudoun Valley we initially had 235 students who showed interest 34 who have fully accepted 201 who declined their seat and again we have zero on the waitlist so every student from out of zone who wanted to participate in this program was able to enroll and has a seat in the program moving on to our next program just some

[00:10:05] reminders about our hampsi enrollment Briarwoods High School and Tuscarora High School each had 75 seats available with 50 seats allocated to biomedical Sciences and 25 to the Language of Medicine. Students zoned for Briarwoods and Tuscarora were included in this lottery unlike IB a little bit different. There were 15 total initial seats at the host site for Briarwood students and Tuscarora students divided into 10 seats for biomedical pathway and five for Language of Medicine. Additionally five seats were available for out-of-zone feeder high schools with three seats for biomedical and two for

[00:10:42] language of medicine the remaining program seats were allocated in lottery number order after the lottery deadline just like IB new registrations were placed on the established waitlist based on the order of submission date and time these charts give a breakdown of the total number of students who are currently enrolled in the ham side program from each feeder high school there were a total of 758 students who showed interest in our health and medical sciences academy across the two schools and to break that down for you

[00:11:17] we had 579 students interested at Briarwoods high school 75 who were accepted 108 who declined and 396 on a wait list at Tuscarora we had 179 interested 75 who accepted 103 declined and we have one student on the wait list you will notice that two students are listed for Tuscarora from non feeders one is from Rockridge and one from John Champ these two students moved over the summer and were originally in a feeder school for Tuscarora. These students have selected to keep their seat and they will provide their own transportation to

[00:11:56] participate in the program. The reason why there are so many Tuscarora students on that last slide is everyone who wanted a seat was offered a seat from feeder schools outside of Tuscarora. Since we didn't have as much interest from other schools more students obviously got in from Tuscarora as shown in the graph. This chart gives a further breakdown of students who were interested offered and accepted from the feeder schools for Briarwoods High

[00:12:27] School the next slide is the same information but for Tuscarora the start gives again a breakdown of students who were interested offered and accepted from the feeder schools for Tuscarora High School our last program we're going to discuss today is our dual language immersion program and as a reminder our programs are at Sanders Corner and Potomac Elementary Schools a lottery again was used to determine enrollment into these programs we had 50 total

[00:13:03] seats for Sanders and 46 for Potomac and to the extent possible we offer half of the seats to zoned students and half of the seats to out of zone students for the two-way 50/50 model that we offer at both schools we strive to have half of the students home language of Spanish and the other half of home language English or other with neither group going below 33 percent so these charts just like the other show the breakdown of students attending from out of zone for Sanders and Potomac we had a total interested number of students for

[00:13:42] kindergarten 419 at Sanders corner we had 269 interested 49 accepted one offer out 42 declined and 177 waitlisted for Potomac we had 150 total interested students 45 accepted we do have one offer out 31 declined 72 on the wait list and we did have one family who withdrew their application and now I'm going to turn it back over to mr. Slevin to talk about some FY 26 budget

[00:14:18] priorities thank you miss Clark so as you know at the recent board meeting we had a work session related to special programs and instructional pathways and one thing that we mentioned at the end of that program is that we would be coming back to the special programs committee to talk through some of the things that are in the proposal for early stages of consideration for the expansion of special programs and pathways and so the purpose of the next few flies slides is to give you all some insight on what may be coming in the FY 26 budget when it comes to existing special programs and then some packages

[00:14:55] that may be considered in the superintendent's estimate of needs also packages that are in response of this to board members who have expressed interest in particular opportunities for our students in LCPS so just a reminder of the guiding principles we talked about at that work session we talked about the importance of balance and consistency across the county and within programs being responsive to both student needs and industry demand being aligned to our instructional vision for LCPS being sustainable meaning that student interest and teacher interest in the program would

[00:15:32] endure over time and then cost-effectiveness in terms of efficiency with the resources that we are provided to run our school system we also talked about the idea of scope versus scope has an impact on time on budget budget has an impact on time as well in terms of whether or not we have existing space for example so when we're thinking about as staff around the development of special programs and opportunities we're trying to keep these this triangle in balance because it's gonna decisions are gonna be impacted by these three factors first

[00:16:10] when it comes to what we call estimated budget needs committed not yet funded these are for programs that already exist and so we've only done two years for a dual language program and so going into second grade we will continue to expand at both Potomac and Sanders corner with the need for two additional Spanish teachers and two language ambassadors for IB we have found that we are going to have our first class of students that are taking our going for diploma in their senior year and so taking courses with exam fees will have

[00:16:47] an increased number of students taking those exam fees so that'll be impacted as well as we're finding some need at the school level for staffing positions to offer some of those smaller cohorts as the program begins to grow meaning if we we generally wouldn't allow for a cohort below 15 students for example but in order to get this program up and running the school has demonstrated some need for some flexible staffing in the past so we may be proposing some additional staffing positions for IB for ham side similar as the program is developed looking at the potential of a staffing position for ham side there's a

[00:17:26] possibility that we may need to move some grant funding to local funding we're trying to get a more holistic picture of how grant funding will be impacting our special programs at a future meeting but that is the Perkins grant in particular that we're talking about and then finally with our access academy the program with george mason we were able to fund half a coordinator position through the go virginia grant but we do anticipate that grant sunsetting at the end of this year so half a position may be proposed in the fy26 budget looking at new initiatives and we're not saying all of these new initiatives are going to show

[00:18:05] up in the superintendent's estimate of needs these are just more in response to either proposals that that we have received are interest from board members so the potential of expanding the diploma program to two additional high schools you see the cost there for additional mainly for coordinators and for the professional development and training for the schools that may be selected for that expansion our existing IB programs at Valley and Heritage are interested in offering the career related programs that really focus on career pathways at the school level that's the next phase after the diploma program that would take some additional um an additional application and training if we were to expand those programs

[00:18:44] we have spoken briefly around around a global and linguistic studies academy at one high school that is a proposal we have received and we plan on briefing this committee on in october but if we were to push that forward in fy26 do you see the cost there for a coordinator we've heard from the board that there's an interest in expanding dual language immersion And as you can tell from Ms. Clark's presentation, there's a high demand for dual language immersion.

[00:19:14] And so we're trying to explore possibly more cost-efficient models for dual language immersion, maybe targeting it at one school as opposed to trying to open it up across the county. And so eventually we'll want to share a little bit more details around that. And then we also have a proposal for an environmental science academy.

[00:19:32] And you can see that there is staff associated with that new initiative. Now, none of these proposals are fully fleshed out or complete, but it kind of is meant to just give you a ballpark idea of where some of the next steps could potentially be taken, specifically when it comes to special programs.

[00:19:50] As each of you know, there are other conversations happening at the county level that compete with this, such as the recovery school, such as a potential transition center. We also are standing up an alternative school, and those programs all have similar needs when it comes to staffing and space.

[00:20:07] but in terms of special programs, we're focusing on that in this particular presentation. So with that, that ends our presentation. We would really appreciate any questions you have about programs. Also going back to Ms. Clark's presentation on admissions or just kind of input in conversation around your thoughts on some of these early proposals.

[00:20:34] - All right, thank you. Thank you so much for that information. It's really helpful. I just wanted to open the floor for discussion to see if the members of the committee had any questions or comments, Mr. Streffner? - Thank you, Madam Chair.

[00:20:50] Thank you very much for the presentation and the update. Just one or two questions, or I'll try to be forthcoming with my thoughts around some of these items as well. And we've talked about it, but IB expansion is one that I had mentioned already, particularly in Eastern Loudoun and Parkview potentially, and definitely support DLI expansion as well.

[00:21:12] I'm looking forward to seeing how we could ramp up dual language immersion from my perspective. My question was around CTE programs and conversations around potentially advanced CTE programs.

[00:21:28] Where does that fall into this discussion? So we have internal conversations around where does the conversation around CTE program expansion fit into the conversation, meaning that not everything needs to be a special program.

[00:21:48] Part of the task that we have in front of us from the entry plan and just doing our due diligence is to evaluate our current offerings in our schools versus what what is the potential what is the need where can we grow and that's been a that's a big part of what dr grubbs is starting to do in his transition into lcps when it comes to evaluating the current cte programs that's part of the reason we're having this workforce summit in october to really we have strong partnerships with our local business community but really enhance the conversation around what do we need

[00:22:25] to be doing in loud and either keeping it the same or doing it a little bit differently and so cte updates generally have come through the special programs committee so i'm envisioning at some point kind of a readout on what's happening within the cte realm there's also an advisory committee for cte or ctac committee that is kicking off at the end of this month and i think a big part of that committee as well is to come to the board and advocate for where there's opportunities for enhancement. So I don't want to put Dr. Grubbs on the spot, but do you want to comment any on what you're hearing and seeing so far? Yeah, I would just, I would absolutely agree

[00:23:03] with Mr. Slevin. I think also I'm in strong partnership with Ms. Clark. We want to make sure that programs that we look to expand in terms of CT are in alignment with the expansion plans of special programs. We don't want to duplicate efforts. If I'm considering an aviation technology program or something like that in response to the workforce we want to make sure that aligns with Ms. Clark's vision as well as Mr. Slevin discussed we really want to leverage our community and that workforce summit is going to be a great opportunity to see where the high scale high wage and demand jobs are of the future not just the next two years but the next 10 to 20 years so I do look forward in coming back and having some deeper richer discussions around our plans

[00:23:43] I appreciate that you are all taking deliberate efforts to really think about this and plan around what this could look like. I think from my perspective, and you touched on it, Mr. Slevin, is from a budget perspective, how should we think about special programs and academies and just kind of think about it from a budgeting perspective when it comes to our thoughts around deploying different models for CTE around the division and what that could look like what seeds are we planting because we I and I've mentioned this to you before I see a lot

[00:24:23] of the grant funded projects access Academy the lab school think initiatives like that as really great innovative seeds that we plant and we measure outcomes and we see how we can expand those outcomes I think I would say that that the advanced CTE or the CTE models that we think about are in line with that same strategy.

[00:24:45] So from a budgeting perspective, once we see what those options could look like, it would affect how we look at or prioritize these items as well. I know that goes without saying, but I just wanted to mention that. - So I just, I want to acknowledge and thank, I don't want to put her on the spot, but Dr. Priddy is here, and she raised a regular attendee at the Special Programs Committee, and definitely is a part of the conversation because we can't talk about advanced CTE pathways or opportunities across Loudoun without considering what's available at the academies of Loudoun.

[00:25:17] And so that's part of the conversation as well. That's part of what's included in the entry plan for the superintendent, just thinking about where are there opportunities for expansion, where there are opportunities to really think about what students are looking for, but also what are the opportunities in front of them.

[00:25:32] So not only are we thinking about it across special programs and CTE, but also the academies are at the table in this conversation. Thank you. I had one question. The data that was presented earlier with the bar graphs, I was wondering if there could be data on -- or maybe it was there -- data on those that got accepted to IB or HAMSAI.

[00:25:56] Is there any data that shows did those same students get accepted to ACL? Because I'm curious to know those that said no, or maybe, like I said, maybe it's there. I'm just curious to know if that was a decision maker. We can definitely work on that data.

[00:26:15] was not in our presentation today but can be part of November we do we can see some of our students that entered for HamSci and IB definitely accepted a seat at TJ or academies or vice versa some of our students chose IB or HamSci over academies or TJ so yes that would definitely be interesting data for us to share out with you thank you any other questions all right okay so then we'll move on to our next agenda item which is environmental science update

[00:26:52] and I'll turn it over to Mr. Slevin to present. Thank you Dr. Rasheed we have a great presentation lined up for you to give you all an update on the work happening around sustainability and environmental science at LCPS. We are connecting this to the special programs committee because part of the conversation is around what's happening in our classrooms when it comes to environmental science but as you're about to hear there's so much more happening when it comes to sustainability and environmental science and lcps so while i get the presentation queued up am i turning it over to

[00:27:30] the secretary so you guys go ahead good afternoon i want to thank you again we are delighted to come and have the opportunity to give you an update today mr slevin is pulling up our slides um just again i'm clark seip i'm the new director of sustainability for lcps and i'm joined by hi hi good afternoon I'm Darielle Timothy science supervisor for LCPS so we've got some some fun updates for you today but we wanted to start with some quick spotlights featuring our students and educators because that is what is truly

[00:28:08] at the anchor of all that we do here at LCPS take a look at this picture the premier school garden you may recognize it if you've ever been over to Frederick Douglass Elementary School. Mary Kirk Cunningham is a kindergarten teacher there and has worked with not only the staff and students at the elementary school, but also members of her community to build up this amazing learning space right there on the school campus.

[00:28:35] Every single child in that school engages with this garden on a regular basis, and this is just one of many, one of many, many in our school. Some of them are a little greener than others, right? and we are working on that, but I wanted you to picture learning that happens in that garden.

[00:28:53] Next slide. Check out the Trashin Show at Emmerich Elementary School. This is how Emmerich students and staff celebrated Earth Day last spring. Yes, that is Principal Haddock on the left. She is always quite fiery, but here she is, dressed to impress, walking down, not the red carpet, but the green carpet.

[00:29:15] Every school child in this school worked together create an outfit made out of recycled and upcycled materials every outfit had a theme and there were students that introduced these characters Taylor Swift won the competition that day and I'm gonna leave that up to your imagination but there was a guitar and everything next slide please here are middle school students at Belmont Ridge working with Jerry Williams who is the spectrum teacher at Belmont Ridge, they researched plastics and the proliferation of plastics in our world

[00:29:53] and looked to replace those plastics with objects, everyday objects made out of sustainable materials. They used mycelium, which is a fungus that they grew and shaped, creating everything from shoes, and yes, this gentleman wore these slides around Belmont Ridge Middle School, to lights, to photo frames, to their own recycling bins created out of these sustainable materials.

[00:30:19] This is the project that won the $5,000 from WSA 9. And so we are working together to create a food waste multi-week project this coming fall. So stay tuned. Who knows how dirty we'll get with that. One more slide, please. And finally, this is a group out with Scott Fortney at Woodgrove High School.

[00:30:38] We hiked five miles along the Appalachian Trail. He invited me to come, and I said, yes, please. um checking out vernal pools which are these special ponds that develop only for a few weeks in the spring and are home to four specific types of animals that can only reproduce in those pools his students got out there had been learning about this were able to find these pools to investigate them and also apply many things that they had learned throughout the school year during this hike it was cold but it was fun we had a great time Darielle take the next one all right so here

[00:31:14] we have students that participated in our propel stem after school program this is at frederick douglas during their showcase but the unit for the entire year actually they applied many iterations to the problem that they were solving and it was all centered around hydroponics and so they explored all different aspects of growing foods sustainable foods hydro through hydroponics and they also had to develop a coding program that actually modeled the way that their hydroponics model unit that they all developed how it would actually function in the real world. So it was

[00:31:50] really great real life application. Slide please. And then we've got the fabulous students here at Cardinal Ridge Elementary School. They did an absolutely amazing job developing a recycling program student-led, student-developed, student-organized, and student-advertised. They were also winners at our Student Environmental Action Showcase that we have every year. It's held at the academies, and they were also winners as well.

[00:32:19] But, I mean, amazing models to show what student-led sustainability efforts can look like. And just a note on those students, there's a video coming out this fall. They have also created a manual because they want this model to be replicated, and they think it is replicable, and I agree that it is in every school in LCPS.

[00:32:38] It's fabulous, and we'd love to share more about it. Let's look at the next one. So here, Dr. Priddy's here, I know. Oh, this is students from Academies of Latin who are part of two very competitive envirothon teams. They do compete every year with Lori Stone, who's pictured on the left.

[00:32:56] In the front, she's their teacher and amazing ambassador. And yet another example of the amazing things that are happening in our schools. We have picked these examples for you, and they are that, examples from a spectrum of things. and what what we really want you to understand is they're really cool things happening throughout our schools already take a look at these statistics also which you will notice and largely this focus is at the high school level there are environmental science classes offered at every single high school in loudon county public schools and at the academies and through virtual loudon right we have

[00:33:32] over 3500 students involved and enrolled in those classes this fall that is a 20 percent increase when it comes to our AP environmental science classes over the last four years so you can tell the interest is there the thirst in our students is there and I would also add the thirst in our educators new specialized environmental science courses are being piloted at Woodgrave High School this fall a new environmental biology courses testing that out we know part of our post entry plan part of our goals here are to really empower our students through specialized learning pathways make sure that we are addressing them meeting them where their passions and interests

[00:34:12] really are and so we're piloting those courses here leading towards what we hope is figuring out what is that right pathway forward for environmental science you can see here 32% of students that were surveyed a year or two back around these academies and special programs expressed very that they were very interested in an environmental Academy what you notice here in my formal statistics right is that all of this is focused at the high school level and that's amazing because we are offering our high school scholars these opportunities to really dig into things that they care about and ways that they feel they can take action in the world we've also shown you though that there's

[00:34:51] this thirst and interest and passion at all levels and that's where an interest in environmental literacy for all is starting to emerge. If we could go to the next slide. You know that my office is new. We opened in December. I am the new director of sustainability.

[00:35:07] I sit and support services, and I am tasked with working with every department in LCPS to figure out how to integrate sustainability into who we are and how we operate. And what I've been doing for the last eight months is a lot of listening, a lot of learning, A lot of spotlighting, the sorts of things that we've begun to really highlight here.

[00:35:27] And really starting to get a feel for what does this intersection of sustainability and learning look like? And that's where you can see these are the priorities that are starting to emerge in that sustainability planning. And you can see the third circle here is cultivating this environmental literacy for all students.

[00:35:47] And we're talking K-12, every level, and every content area. Sustainability, environmental science is not limited to the science field, right? It has intersections with every single thing that our students are learning and applying as they go forward.

[00:36:04] And so as this emphasis emerged, Mr. Slovin, if we could go to the next one, we have really started to work with members of our district and members of our community to try to understand what do we mean by that. Many members of our district and community recognize that this is challenge of our generation, right?

[00:36:27] We know we're empowering our students to make meaningful contributions to the world, their world, as they go forward. And thinking about how we really equip them to do that is a really important question. Many of members of our district and community are ecstatic when they learn that our school board already has a commitment to this work.

[00:36:53] That 2020 school board resolution that's referenced on the screen calls for expansion of our environmental curriculum and learning opportunities. It challenges us to find ways to elevate student voice and advocacy. That is all of the things that we are talking about here.

[00:37:10] And so we have this path before us that really is an opportunity to figure out how we do that and what that looks like. Next slide. Working together with teaching and learning, Dariel and I have been partners since week two on the job.

[00:37:25] I entered stage left, and we've been going full speed ever since. We've really started to work with, again, members of our district and members of our community to figure out, okay, so what did it is we mean by this? And when we think about environmental science, what we are really challenging us as LCPS to think about is how do we not only ensure that our students understand these things, but are also equipped and inspired to be able to take on these environmental challenges.

[00:37:56] What are the opportunities that we create for them that help them to understand and also equip and inspire them? Because we know all three parts of that are absolutely imperative. Next slide. The how of that is also starting to emerge, and that's what we wanted to make sure we also give you an update on today.

[00:38:17] We know it's gotta be integrated into curriculum. This can't be one more thing for our educators and students. This has to be built into who we are and how we operate, and we believe, again, that that intersection is so clear that what we are trying to advocate for is aligned already with everything that we are teaching in our classrooms, and I would add, outside of our classrooms, right?

[00:38:38] So curriculum integration, we know we also can't do that without also supporting our educators. So what is it that we need to be providing in terms of professional learning, in terms of materials and supplies and other types of support that enable our educators to do what it is we as a collective are excited about taking on.

[00:38:56] We wanna make sure kids get outside. And then working with many other members of our district, how do we also make sure that we are exposing them to things that, you know, futures that they may not even know about. Let's be real in recognizing that there are majors that exist in college.

[00:39:11] There are jobs exist in the world today that did not exist 10 years ago, five years ago. So we're excited about that. Next slide, please. - So a lot of this really is grounded in Virginia signed on to the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, and this really helps to lay a firm foundation as we are building our environmental literacy outcomes and goals moving forward with some of those key stakeholders that Clark has just mentioned.

[00:39:42] And so one of the things keeping in mind with the watershed agreement are that there are 10 goals total that come out of this agreement that are really helping to drive some of the next steps as we're going on this environmental literacy journey. And so through some of the work that we have started is, and as it relates to this agreement, really thinking about student outcomes, knowing that we need to prepare our future graduates.

[00:40:08] And so this really can be actualized through meaningful watershed educational experiences, but more specifically at the elementary and middle school levels. Because as it was mentioned earlier, high school has very robust course programming pathways in terms of environmental education, environmental science, excuse me.

[00:40:25] But we realize that that needs to be even just as robust for our elementary and our middle school students so that we can strengthen that pipeline for those that would like those opportunities. But in addition to that, also thinking about how the school can really become a campus in which students research all of these different aspects of sustainability and environmental literacy.

[00:40:46] So really thinking about how can we increase the number of schools that are reducing their impacts on the buildings and on their grounds and having that serve as the research laboratory for our students as they're going through some of their me-wees as they're referenced to.

[00:41:01] And then overall, really, it is developing our idea of what environmental literacy needs to look like in LCPS. And so that's going to also be a very key role. And in the next subsequent slides, we're going to talk about how we're working with key stakeholders that share in this vision and mission creation with us, because we understand they're going to be really important in this work as well.

[00:41:23] Slide, please. Go back. so one thing definitely wanted to point out you know at the state level there are tons of resources as well that we are able to utilize to help guide our work so we definitely just wanted to be able to capture what some of those really key primary resources are going to be one that i will highlight is virginia association environmental education that's one that here in lcps that we have engaged with some of those other members as well to help expand our ideas of what that could look like for our district. And strategic partnerships at all levels are really going to be key. So next slide

[00:41:58] will help to illustrate that for us. So here are just a few key stakeholders and strategic partnerships that we understand we need to have as part of our working group as we're developing out our environmental literacy identity here at LCPS. So these are really going to be key stakeholders because they also provide information around career readiness what are the competencies that we need to ensure that our students are getting exposed to through our various curricular resources and academic programming as well as being strategic allies for us and understanding how can we stay connected as we continue this work because we know with sustainability

[00:42:38] and environmental education every day there are challenges that are increasing and so having these touch points with these stakeholders will help us stay abreast of the latest information slide please fantastic so to finish our update today we wanted to tell you about four things that we will be working on simultaneously during the 24-25 school year first we're continuing our sustainability planning I told you I've done a lot of listening and learning and brainstorming with partners here within the district over the last eight months we're taking what those emerging priorities out now into different special interest groups within

[00:43:17] the district and into our community to really get some feedback when i talk to people about this i say this is a snapshot in time right this is what we've learned and heard and started to see emerge over these last several months give us your feedback what does this look like for you how does this connect to what's happening in your department how does this connect to what's happening in your sector and so this has started you can see some of the folks below that were working with us um the second thing that we're working on simultaneously yeah so the the planning and this was really where um so these are some examples from the round table that we just recently

[00:43:52] had last week actually where we invited some uh community partners from all different organizations experts passions for uh environmental education and really it was a great event in which we were all able to converse and everyone was able to put ideas on the table and so it was a really great way for us to capture what are some high priorities for some of these key stakeholders that participated in this conversation, as well as we were really able to define what it is that will be some next steps.

[00:44:22] So as you'll see on this screen, the development of meaningful watershed educational experiences, we've been able to receive a grant so that we can build in these curricular resources. But a really great piece of this work is that we will be collaborating with environmental organizations so that we can also upskill our teachers and understanding what does quality environmental education look like in the classroom and outside of the classroom and that curriculum cohort is grant funded which we were really excited to through one of those strategic partnerships there the fourth and final piece we want to make sure you understand is happening throughout this coming school year as well is piloting of this green teams

[00:45:00] program we shared several examples at the beginning of these student action projects that are already happening in our schools we think that that should be be accessible those types of learning experiences hands-on application activities to be accessible throughout our district and so really trying to figure out how do we not only encourage and support educators that want to lead those efforts in their schools through stipended positions and also providing modest project funds to also help them carry out projects in their schools we're gonna pilot this out see how it's received within the schools we think about 30 to 35 schools will be able to participate that in that program this year with the hope that if it's well received those educators will help us

[00:45:39] design a full-scale program that can be in every school moving forward after we should put these them the pictures there on the right to remind you of those spotlights at the very beginning these these examples that we're sharing with you are truly compelling when you talk to these educators you talk to these students they they are so passionate about this work and they want their friends to be involved they want other educators to know and the programs that we've described are going to connect educators to educators to help grow this organically as well so we'd like to pause and just thank you again for inviting us for this update and if you have

[00:46:13] any questions we'd be happy to take them okay thank you so much from um this awesome presentation with trash and show to i i didn't i still don't the imagination with taylor swift i i'm still working on that but there was a wig and everything oh wow okay it's a sight to see and uh from acronyms of me, we, just saying it, me, we, it's so cute just saying it, but thank you so much for that awesome presentation. I had a question, if you go back a few slides or what you can recall, there were some measurements of success that you had mentioned, and that was the increase in

[00:46:51] enrollment, and I believe the survey, you had said you had surveyed students, and there was some percentage involved. It would be great if we could get in the future, like, let's say if there were or maybe there are other measurements of success of this program or rather, you know, of the environmental sciences, it'd be great to know that.

[00:47:11] And not just that, but if we can get, like, a breakdown of data when it comes to the enrollment. Like, are there a lot of students that are really enrolling heavily in the western part of Loudoun or in the eastern part of Loudoun just for, I don't know, the sake of curiosity and maybe to develop even further on certain regions, but, I mean, to still keep it as is.

[00:47:35] Yeah, we can certainly look into that. So we can, I think it will also help us to make some comparisons to see where we might need to build up a little bit more if we're seeing interest less lacking. So we can certainly bring that. Yeah, that would be great. And I wanted to ask my other committee members any questions or comments.

[00:47:55] Okay, so we can move on to the next agenda item. Thank you so much. And that is transportation update. And I will turn it over to Mr. Kevin Lewis and Mr. Scott Davies to present.

[00:48:13] Kevin Lewis: While these gentlemen get situated, just thank you for -- yeah, I'm going to present it. So the work of special programs goes far beyond teaching and learning. It impacts our friends in transportation and DDI and HR.

[00:48:29] So we're happy to have the transportation team here today to give us some information about what's happening in their world when it comes to special programs. So Mr. Davies. Kevin Lewis: Thank you, Mr. Slovin. I'd like to first introduce the members of my team that are present Miss Sue Carlson she's our transportation supervisors oversees all operations.

[00:48:48] Miss Kathleen Goreny she oversees training and the recruitment of new drivers as well as all of our routing. And she is our outreach coordinator and oversees our interface with our entire constituency. So they've been key to the to the development of our presentation today as well as what we're trying to be prepared for as special programs grows.

[00:49:13] Just to give you a quick snapshot of where we stand right now with our drivers because that is the driver of everything we can or cannot do is the availability of our personnel. In spring of 24 we had end of the year with a surplus of seven drivers.

[00:49:34] We had 17 drivers depart us over the summer due to retirements and we've only been able to replace a small number of those. We also had 19 routes that were added due to additional special programs and special needs routes and the bell schedule changes moving those 10 schools from 7:30 to 7:45 added a portion of that those 19.

[00:49:59] So that has led us to right now we are we have a shortage of 29 drivers. Next slide. When we're looking at supporting what I call special programs that are beyond our bread and butter, our regular home to school, school to home, anything that's outside of the ordinary.

[00:50:23] We essentially have three different options we can choose from. We have our residential stops. We accomplish that. We do a combination of two different methods. One is direct busing where a bus will just go and pick up from one residential stop to the next, to the next, to the next, and the bus could have 30 stops along its route before it will go to its ultimate destination or we use middle school buses that have capacity available and they will go to a middle school hub stop where a shuttle will pick those students up they'll transfer from the middle school bus to a shuttle and then they'll go from the shuttle to

[00:51:02] their final destination we have primary road stops which we have not implemented yet and we have hub stops which we where we utilize LCPS facilities mainly middle and high schools but we also have some elementary schools as well since they're a little more in the neighborhood easier more easily accessible. One of the other critical factors here is the timeline. First we have our routes are established in the spring of the previous year and and then as the students roll over and they begin to populate those routes and then the

[00:51:37] routes are adjusted accordingly. Our students that enroll in the spring and in the start of the school year that that enrollment starts to impact how routes are developed because the route we have students that are enrolling in programs up until the first day of school and if they're coming from a zone from a school that's outside the attendance zone for that school then that has a significant impact on transportation because we have to transport them from you know Banneker or from from Sterling to out west or or somewhere something like that.

[00:52:17] And then we also have route and stop changes that are requested throughout the school year. We have alternative transportation requests that come in. They want to go from this stop to that stop or they want this they don't want to be taken to grandma's house or daycare.

[00:52:34] And all that has impacts on on our ability to to constantly meet that meet that challenge. And growing parent expectations. That's the other the other factor. We have 81,000 students right now, and 75% of those students are eligible, and 65% of those actually ride.

[00:52:57] But knowing which ones actually ride and when, because we have all kinds of seasonal activities after school and before school, and that impacts ridership. And our goal every day is to keep all of our seats full. Because you saw the driver shortage, we want to make sure that we're utilizing our available resources as efficiently as possible and maximizing every seat on the bus and so those changes are present a challenge to our routing team and our operations team we have over 10,000 route changes processed annually as student enrollment changes as student activities

[00:53:35] change and ridership changes again we're trying to maximize our available resources when I mentioned before the constant change in enrollment is a a challenge as well next slide take for example we have a student that is going to academies allowed and they can have up to 5 a.m. trips and 3 p.m. trips if they're if they have joint custody so in this case go to the next slide

[00:54:10] they'll have they'll write a middle school shuttle to the hub stop then take the hub stop to a shuttle that will then take them to academies that's from parent one and a separate middle school bus from parent two and then they'll ride the uh the shuttle home or shuttle two back to the high school and then back from high school to their home for parent one and a separate bus for parent two so they'll be having two seats on on two different buses or a seat on on two different buses depending on which parent they're going to and then

[00:54:47] for the B days when they're going to the regular high school that's also a separate track so we have constraints within our system to provide of so many varieties of options available to our students just because of the constraints of the technology next slide and this gives you some graphics this is the routing for one student this these are different routes that they run and you can see that the one furthest to the left and the one the next one on the high up over you can see how that routing works where they're going from along

[00:55:26] middle school route I think that's probably down Berlin Turnpike and then they get on the shuttle that red line goes directly to academies and so that this it does present a challenge for our routing team to to manage all that especially when they're not assigned to that school to that middle school hub next slide I mentioned before we have four academies right now that is the only special program academies North Star and alternative education those are the only programs that we provide a residential stop pickup for those students and as I mentioned before there's two different options that we

[00:56:06] use to achieve that method or two different methods to achieve that option one is the where they ride the middle school bus and then they take the shuttle from there from the middle school hub to the academies the other one which is a direct busing that's what I call a spaghetti route and you can see that bus is going all over those that neighborhood picking up about 20 different stops in that neighborhood before it proceeds north to go to academies that makes for a very long route for those students as they pick up one at a time trying to maximize the load on that bus and with that many

[00:56:45] stops it ultimately leads to the bus arriving late especially from a far distance like from the south to academies and I know the principal at academies is constantly on us about making sure our buses are on time so we're very focused on that but this does handicap our ability to meet that next

[00:57:08] slide ROTC we have 49 students that are out of zone and we utilize six buses they are picked up from hub stops and you can see there there's the six different routes and these are the hub stops the great thing about this is that the this is all taking place before our buses are starting their elementary routes so this is at 5:30 6:00 in the morning so it has very little impact on

[00:57:45] our available resources again the importance of time is a big component in our in the availability of resources so because this happens so early in the morning and which which is what they desire in order to do all their their drilling and everything that they do outside of the the core curriculum day allows us to to to meet this requirement very easily and then these to those in our ROTC students will ride home on a regular Loudoun County bus after that busses has hit its regular stops it will then proceed to these hub stops after that so it doesn't again doesn't impact our our availability of resources next

[00:58:23] slide for International Baccalaureate we have these are the hub stops that we utilize for heritage and for Loudoun Valley and you can see the hub stops provide the most direct shortest route home or to school from from each of the different areas of the county the one downside of the hub stops is the they need to get themselves to the hub but it provides the quickest route and allows us to fill the bus as quickly as possible to maximize those available resources so for IV we have six buses and they're transporting 160 students to

[00:59:02] those two schools that are out of zone slide health and medical sciences we same we have the six buses that are going that are coming from each of the different areas of the county and for HAMPSI we expanded the number of hub stops that are going to Briarwoods based on on student need.

[00:59:23] So this is really important we we the hub stops we're able to expand those to help meet the additional needs of the students without dramatically impacting the length of the ride or the the number of students that can be transported on the bus.

[00:59:40] Next slide. This is just a quick overview of our costs for academies north star alternative education we're spending a little less than a million dollars on every year on plus the 32 buses that we have to purchase that is comes out of our CIP budget IB about two hundred thousand is our impact on operating and about nine hundred thirty thousand for CIP and then for health and medical sciences one hundred twenty one thousand operating with the same

[01:00:14] them out for CIP next slide and as we look for for at the program growth for specialized programs as I mentioned we have the options of hub stops which again I think are the most efficient direct way to get our students we can we can do in our residential stops which is what we're providing for academies allowed and primary road stop which is kind of a hybrid of that but still makes the bus it can shorten the bus routes rather than going into every single neighborhood.

[01:00:45] We just pick up along major routes but it still provides for the longest or a long long route for for buses. Next slide. And this gives you just some some quick graphics of what that looks like as we look for that future growth.

[01:01:05] We would set up regional hubs that will then bring students to the main hub they will then transfer to their program bus and then proceed to their program high school. We think this is the most efficient way to move a large volume of students especially once we have these specialized programs at more and more schools.

[01:01:24] Right now we have two buses that are going to Potomac High School or Potomac Falls High School and to the east one for HAMSI one for IB. In the future we see that those that one bus can go pick up from all those schools and then bring them to the hub and then transfer to the program bus from there.

[01:01:44] Next slide. - Before you move on, I didn't mean to interrupt you. So in the interest of time, I think there's some members here that have to go to another committee. I'm not sure what time that starts, but perhaps-- - 4:30. - At 4:30, right. Is it okay if we can pick this up at the next meeting?

[01:02:00] I know there's a few slides left, but I would hate to run over and mess up the other committee. I apologize, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

[01:02:16] - No, no. - Okay, all right, I will move on. Thank you so much for that and I excuse myself from that. Any questions before we move on so I can just keep going? Okay. Our next meeting is scheduled for October 1st, 3:30 p.m.

[01:02:34] Please mark your calendars. If there's no further business, I entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. All those in favor say aye. Aye. And those opposed say nay. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

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