Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Loudoun Education Alliance of Families (LEAF) Meeting, Monday, October 21, 2024

Date: Monday, October 21, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 31m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1021933769?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

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

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[00:00:32] Welcome everyone, we're gonna get started. I'm sure we'll have a few more trickle in. Thank you so much for attending this evening's meeting. If you haven't already done so, please sign in using the QR code at your table or on your note catcher. I now call this October 21st leave meeting to order.

[00:00:49] I'd like to extend a warm welcome to any of our new members. One of our leadership team members will reach out to you this week to help you get acclimated, share last month's highlights, and answer any questions you may have. The first item on the agenda is public comment.

[00:01:04] LEAF meetings are open to the public and Lowen County residents are welcome to attend. However, we ask that attendees refrain from interrupting the meeting's agenda. Per the LEAF charter bylaws, public comments should address items on the agenda. Members of the public who wish to comment may do so at this time.

[00:01:21] Do we have any public comments this evening? Seeing no public comments, we will move on. The September 16, 2024 meeting minutes are available on the LEAF website and we've provided few copies here for those who did not have an opportunity to review the copy posted on the website prior to tonight's meeting. I will now entertain a motion to accept the minutes from the September 16, 2024 meeting as submitted. Do we have a motion? Thank you. Is there a second? Thank

[00:01:58] you. All in favor, please say aye. All those opposed? Hearing no opposition, the minutes stand approved as submitted. We will now move on to information items. The minutes are approved. Before we begin our regular agenda, the LEAF leadership and I are thrilled to introduce LCPS's Superintendent, Dr. Aaron Spence, who is joining us this evening.

[00:02:23] Dr. Spence, it's an honor to welcome you. Your unwavering commitment to student success and dedication to fostering strong family and community engagement have been instrumental in shaping the positive direction of our schools. We're excited to have you here and look forward to hearing your insights and vision on the continued growth of this group and division.

[00:02:42] thank you dr spence thank you very much i'm very excited to be here and appreciate the opportunity just to to connect again with leaf it's been a little bit since i've had the opportunity to come back so um you know i was thinking about vision and direction for this group and for our work together and i thought um i would just start with a kind of universally understood comment parenting is hard parenting is hard so i uh it's also great it's like a blessing and it's such a wonderful

[00:03:20] experience to go through. I think I've shared with, and perhaps some of you are new, so just a little bit of background about me. I am a parent. I have six children, and two of them are in our school system. The other four went through a previous school system with me, and so I know what it's like to be a parent in a school division. And I say parenting is hard, not as a negative, but parenting is hard because there are so many daily things that we wrestle with with our children.

[00:03:48] And one of the things that we should do together is make sure that that's easier when they're in our schools, that the wrestling that we have to do with our children with regards to our school division should be a positive experience, right? There's no magic wand that says kids aren't going to have trouble in school.

[00:04:07] They're not going to have some challenges. Maybe they run into a teacher they struggle with or there's some academic difficulties or they're just like my seventh grader who's going through being a seventh grader. Anybody with a 7th grader in the room, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's just going through being a 7th grader and what that means, right?

[00:04:24] All of those changes, and this is my last 7th grader, so I'm super grateful for that experience. Yes, I know. Thank you. Yes. But, you know, that's tough. And, you know, on a day-to-day basis, you know, he kind of, they go in and out of friend groups, and it just doesn't feel good some days.

[00:04:41] And, you know, I want him to have a good experience, so I do what other parents do. I kind of just reach out to the school and I say, hey, can you just keep an eye on them? Tell me what's going on. And I feel really grateful that, and of course now I assume everybody has the same experience I do as a parent, although recognize that I also have a title behind my name when I make that call.

[00:05:01] And so I'm sure the attention is immediate, perhaps more so than for others, which I hope is not the case, because I think everybody deserves to have the kind of attention that I feel I get when I call our schools. And I hope that's the case. And if it's not, then I think those are opportunities for us to engage in conversation and figure out how do we make sure that those relationships remain strong and those opportunities to support our children when they're going through our schools remain strong.

[00:05:31] And so that's the perspective that I bring to the work of engaging with our families is that I know how I want it to feel for me when I want to have those conversations with my child's teachers and with my child's school.

[00:05:47] And the other perspective I have is that it's really good here. It's really very positive. I mean, again, there is no magic wand to make everything perfect. I think I've said probably to this group before, and I say to a lot of groups, if you're looking for perfection, you're probably looking in the wrong direction.

[00:06:05] We are really good. There's always opportunity to improve. And that's what the work of this group really has to be about. We have to be focusing on how do we continue to improve ourselves. To that end, as you're aware, we've made some structural changes in our work. We've created an office that focuses on family and community engagement specifically.

[00:06:25] That is their purpose. And so the idea was to bring together some of the various functions of family engagement that are happening in a lot of places and try to center that in one place. I've often, as a superintendent, sort of come to the belief system.

[00:06:41] I often say, you need to have somebody who gets up every day and thinks about this thing, right? So you wouldn't want to run an organization and not have somebody who gets up every day thinking about the budget. You need somebody who gets up and thinks about that. You've got to have a chief finance office. And I think that's true for family engagement, particularly in school divisions, because it's such a critical part of the work that we do.

[00:07:03] That relationship that we have with our families, that relationship that we build with our parents, and that that's not a one-way street. It's not about just communicating things out to parents, which is how a lot of school divisions approach family engagement, right? It has to be a two-way connection and a two-way conversation where we're seeking to understand, what do you need from us?

[00:07:23] What can we do better for you as you're endeavoring to get through this hard experience, which is parenting a child through a school division? And so that's why this matters. That's why you being here matters. And so I want to tell you that I'm particularly grateful for that.

[00:07:41] I also just want to tell you I'm grateful for being in Loudoun County. I think it's important that you hear that from me because there are so many incredible and wonderful things happening here. And we're opening the doors and thinking about how to really build incredible experiences that your children will benefit from.

[00:08:02] And, you know, like, for example, I don't know if you were paying attention to what was going on in the division last week, but we hosted this amazing event. It was our first ever workforce summit. And if you read about this, it was really incredible to be in the room. and we had almost 300 community partners, business partners, nonprofits, higher education, anybody with a vested interest in the school system and in our children and in our community.

[00:08:28] And we came together, and the whole conversation was, how do we build ways, pathways, for students to pursue the things that they're really passionate about? And how do we create these connections across our community so that students can see themselves in these jobs, these high-wage, high-demand jobs that exist right here, but also know how to get there and how to connect that to the things that they're super passionate about, right? So it wasn't just like, oh, it's IT day or airport day. Those things matter and they're great, but it was really a bunch of people from different sectors. We had folks from hospitality and the arts and

[00:09:05] agriculture and IT and like anything that matters here in Loudoun County. We had people in the room talking about how do we connect kids to that and it was really it was just it was a fun day and it was there was really high excitement but at the end of the day it was about creating better experiences for kids and it was a way for us to start answering that age-old question that we parents have about our children which is what do I do to make sure they're not sleeping on my couch when they graduate from high school right and and so those are the kinds of things that are exciting that we're engaging in as well.

[00:09:40] And so I'm looking forward to continuing that work. I'm looking forward to the work that you're doing tonight. I want to encourage you to dig in, particularly to two things that you're talking about, all the things, but two things in particular, the working agreements that you're going to dig into tonight about how we work together, how we work together as parents to better the work of the school division so that we do that in a really positive way where we're communicating in ways that are open and honest and really have rich value for you so that you don't feel like you're sitting here wasting your time, but also for us so that we feel like the information flow that we need is happening

[00:10:19] so that we understand where the challenges are because we can't fix what we don't know about. And so really thinking about how we make those agreements work in a way that works for all of us. So really asking you to dig into that. And then, of course, there's this grading policy conversation that you guys are going to have tonight and just encouraging you to really give that some thoughtful time to really talk about and think about with us because we know there were a lot of concerns through the listening sessions that I held last year that came out about this and it was about how do we hold kids accountable for doing the work and for learning but also supporting students

[00:10:58] so that they have the opportunity to succeed and so I'll be really interested in getting your thoughts on that And I know Ms. Chernoff, our board member who's here, this is a true, truly, she wants to champion this conversation and make sure we get it right. So I know she's really interested in hearing from you all on that as well.

[00:11:17] And so I probably went past my allotted time, but I, thank you. But I did want to stop and just say thank you again. All of us have choices about the things we do with our time and the things we do with our lives.

[00:11:35] And all of you, I assume that you're in the room, all of you then have children and you could be home with them. You could be at their events or making dinner with them and all of those other things. But instead, what you chose to do tonight was to show up, to show up here and be a part of this conversation.

[00:11:53] And so I'm really grateful for you exercising that choice because I think that's what makes us stronger. So thanks for that, and appreciate the opportunity to keep working with you. And I know that we have a great team here to support you. But again, we can't do this alone.

[00:12:09] And so you are appreciated. And I just wanted to make sure that I stopped by and said that. So thanks very much for your time tonight. Thank you, Dr. Spence. We really appreciate your time.

[00:12:25] Next, I'd like to revisit two agenda items we introduced during September's meeting-- the important community topics activity and the working agreements. The goal is to review and reach consensus tonight For those of you who are new or were unable to attend the last meeting, the documents were shared in last week's emails are also available in your handouts and should provide you context for your feedback.

[00:12:49] Thank you to everyone that participated in the activities regarding the important topics or hot topics. LEAF has gathered this input each year since its inception. This information is what drives our monthly agendas. The provided synopsis highlights the themes your contributions which include student safety, academic access and flexibility, school nutrition, parent engagement, communication and teacher retention. These themes reflect a clear desire for increased transparency, collaboration and equity within the school division.

[00:13:24] Please take a moment to review and discuss these themes with some small groups at your tables if you want to just some tables only have three so you guys can talk between yourselves but in small groups are at your table if you take a moment to review those themes we'd like to know if there are other themes or topics that should be added for the benefit of the group in our school communities as a reminder if you have questions or issues that pertain to your individual child or family we ask that you reach out to your child's teacher administrator or school so our role here is to represent and support our broader communities so if you would please take a few minutes to discuss

[00:14:01] at your tables and then after I will ask for significant changes or additions you'd like to share you're also welcome to provide your thoughts through the meetings feedback form you can use the qr code provided in your handout any questions before we get started all right Kim can you set a three-minute timer please oh we have one question sorry go ahead yeah so is there anything that you want added that you think needs added to the existing list or if there's anything that

[00:14:34] needs to pare down just go ahead and talk to your groups about it just yeah yeah yes it's open still we just want to make sure that we get everybody's feedback okay all right thanks kim can we have

[00:14:46] three minute timer thank you so much all right our three minutes are up um can we come back together

[00:18:00] would anyone like to share what you discussed at your tables uh something that you feel strongly that maybe needs addressed in your communities that we can add yeah i'll start over here go Go ahead. Absolutely. Yes. I know. I see that. Oh, the mics. Yes. Can we use the mics, please?

[00:18:34] I know you get those filter reports. I don't know if you guys know that you can get those filter reports about where you're, I think my son was like on YouTube like 650 times in a week. And I'm like, how is that possible? Anyways, moving on. So that's a good point. Okay. Go ahead. Yes. Is that on? Okay. We wanted to, for number three as well, under the food section, add a finance goal to that as well to make sure that you know the cafeteria workers currently in the schools are being funded by ice cream sales and junk food sales and so many of the children in the school are

[00:19:11] funding these workers and that's not we don't want them having ice cream and junk food as their meal that is affecting their learning and their overall health and nutrition thank you appreciate the feedback. Anybody else? Yes. Use your microphone, please. That would be great. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:19:37] For number four, for parent involvement and communication, virtual distance elementary and secondary does not have a PTA, and it's something that the community would like to have as a PTA for our community. We were unable to have one because we're a program, not a school.

[00:19:56] Thank you. That's excellent feedback. Thank you so much. Any other feedback items? Yes, go ahead. active today. Under number five, under the teacher diversity and training, I just wanted to make sure that the ambassador program is included in there. I'm sorry, the what program? The ambassador program. Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to provide us additional feedback. It really helps us to decide what type of, who will come and speak to us and be able to provide that

[00:20:32] information. If there is something that you think of, you know, after the meeting, you're always welcome to provide that in the feedback form as well. All right. So next, before we begin our collaborative conversations, I'd like to invite Dr. Christina Arponte to share our data summary from the working agreements we discussed with Renee Dawson in September.

[00:20:52] Ms. Dawson is unable to join us this evening, and Dr. Arponte will be supporting us with this work in her absence. So thank you. MS.

[00:21:08] Thanks. Good evening, everybody. Missed you all last month. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be here last month. So during September's meeting, Ms. Renee Dawson, she introduced the concept of working agreements with everybody, which are, as a reminder, shared guidelines or norms designed to foster really a culture of collaboration, accountability, and productivity.

[00:21:28] So it really aligns with what Dr. Spence was saying about sharing this information, moving the work forward, and family engagement. To make the most out of our time in tonight's collaborative conversation, because as we know that time goes really really quickly mrs. Dawson and I wanted to provide a brief Greek group excuse me review before we break into our smaller discussions in your materials this evening you'll find the summary of the raw data that came from your previous discussions with mr. Dawson these results were also emailed to you and are available online as well so you know as you communicate with your

[00:22:06] communities feel free to link from the website. After reviewing the results from the three rotations we saw some clear preferences emerge. As you can see here on the screen the overarching trends really emphasize the importance of inclusion, collaboration, ethical communication and ethical communication to achieve positive outcomes for our students and community. And really putting our kids um first which and you know in community but kids i love when kids come to the surface because a lot of times you know we'll hear uh conversation we'll hear everything and i'm like

[00:22:43] but the students so thank you for that um ultimately the four key working agreements um that rose to the top um are you all have copies of and they're outlined here and i would like i don't want to read them all to you but can i have four volunteers to read these out loud Using your microphone, four people.

[00:23:07] Thank you. All right, good. I'm going to do one. Number one, we will actively listen and respect all perspectives, fostering an inclusive environment where every voice is valued. Thank you. Second person? Thank you.

[00:23:27] We will engage in open, transparent, and solution-oriented discussions focused on the best interests of our students and school community. Thank you. Third one? Thank you.

[00:23:46] We will collaborate with empathy, assuming positive intent, and seeking common ground to build trust and strengthen partnerships. Thank you so much. And our fourth one? Yes, thank you.

[00:24:08] We will hold ourselves accountable by coming prepared, staying engaged, and committing to follow through on actionable goals that benefit the entire community. Thank you. So those were, again, the four agreements that rose to the top.

[00:24:25] So before I wrap up, I just want to preview what we're going to do with these working agreements and the collaborative discussion. Um, and, uh, what Ms. Dawson really hopes to achieve as we reflect on these working agreements. During each rotation, we're going to engage in small group discussions focused on the agreement.

[00:24:44] Specifically, we're interested in hearing what you like, what you wonder. So if, you know, if really what we saw from the raw data really reflects, you know, if it's really kind of, uh, truth in the data, um, and so, and if there are any changes, right? If there's some, you know, nuances that we want to do, if you want to edit them.

[00:25:04] So, again, just your likes and your wonders. You may hear your kids say, what do I wonder? Notice and wonderings in your classes. So we use that a lot. So basically it's questions. As you share, I'll be documenting your feedback and passing it along to Mrs. Dawson, who will receive it and will determine whether any next steps or adjustments are needed to ensure that the working agreements best support everyone's commitment to honoring and upholding those agreements. So, in advance, thank you for your participation, and I hope this really helps set the stage for our discussions ahead. Thanks, everybody. I don't know how to use

[00:25:42] this mic. Okay, great. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Is that mine? Yes. Okay. Next, we will engage in our collaborative conversation discussions. As we did last time, we are seated in cluster groups arranged alphabetically. We have three discussions this evening, so maybe if like your table can move down there when it comes time that way we'll have three groups if that works out that looks about even we are three rotations will be our update corner mrs. Chernoff will lead a discussion on policy review on the grading policy I'd like to thank dr. Ashley Ellis our chief

[00:26:19] academic officer will also be joining us for tonight's conversation about the policy review we also have special programs Katie Clark our director of academic programs is here with her team to share about special programs this discussion will involve members visiting tables that are set up outside in the lobby but director Clark will provide more details about each rotation when you enter that rotation and then a third one will be working agreements where we will have a conversation to gather your thoughts and feedback on the working agreements themes and outcomes so each group will rotate every 10 minutes we

[00:26:56] can add some time if we need to depending on how things look and you can stay seated where you're at unless you're moving tables and the speakers will rotate to you just like we normally do we'll give a three minute more three minute warning before each rotation followed by a one minute prompt for the presenters to move are there any questions before we begin yeah that's

[00:27:23] I was thinking that they either they can move over here right so do we want the end table to move over there. Does she want them out at the hallway? She's going to start with them first.

[00:27:53] Yeah, before we go. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for moving.

[00:27:59] Appreciate it. Any questions? All right.

[00:40:45] Excuse the interruption. We have three more minutes in our groups. Three minutes in this group

[00:40:50] before a rotation.

[00:41:53] One minute remaining.

[00:44:09] One minute to wrap up our

[00:44:10] discussions.

[00:46:10] Are we debating the merits of each individual program to decide if we're going to fund? Is that funding on one of them or something?

[00:46:30] Is that what we're doing? Odyssey review?

[00:46:47] Okay. I think people have gone back down.

[00:51:43] We do have it in the notes to address IB in this process.

[00:52:14] It may be in the regulation at times.

[00:53:09] I just have a general curriculum feedback as part of the grades. I think that the kids are not exploring enough electives during their... My son is definitely like, I must take this number of APs to get into the schools that I want, which is fine. And I'm glad that he has that drive. But that means that in order to do so, he has said, I am absolutely not taking any arts or anything else because I don't get the brain bump and it's not my. So I feel like they're missing out on having some exploration as far as like, I feel like we're pushing, you know, science and technology, which is great for those students

[00:53:49] who are interested in it. But for those who are not, I feel like that still is the push. So that way they can compete against their peers in order to get into those, like, elite colleges. So what I'm wondering is, is there a possibility or a way to have pass-fail for electives?

[00:54:05] So that way they would still potentially take them and be interested instead of not. Or some other way, how to address that. And subsequently, and I guess this is curriculum, and I apologize for deviating, but they also are applying to colleges and saying what their major is going to be when they apply to college.

[00:54:23] which that's a whole nother issue right but that's what they're doing like that's what colleges are asking for from our students and so I feel that they're not necessarily prepared for that my daughter has already been through the process and she definitely had no idea what she was doing as she was applying and seeing the same thing happening to my son I feel like is it possible for those students who are interested in going further having some sort of and I know this is curriculum not grades but it gets into grades because if you take a class and it's just a regular class, you don't get a grade bump, you're not going to take it because it pulls their GPA down.

[00:55:01] And you're competing against your peers. So if your peers are doing that and you are not, you're going to be the one that doesn't have that impact. It goes both ways.

[00:55:25] I remember a lot of us when I was in high school, we all took the AP language exam our junior year. And then once we got our grade and we passed, we all took regular honors English grade senior year. instead of AP Literature, because it was the easier class. And we're like, we have other, harder classes.

[00:55:42] But you know, probably we'll learn more in AP Literature looking back at it. So just to give you a heads up on what it looks like, what your future holds. My son is taking every single class of it. He's a senior. That's what he expects to take, because he wants to have that bump in that.

[00:56:00] So he doesn't have an easy class. There isn't an easy class in that schedule. And oh, by the way, he needs to apply to college this year. And he wants to do sports because he's an athlete. So just, like, I feel like it's that roller coaster. So what are you doing here? Therapy or something?

[00:56:16] No, he's only my second. I've got one more coming up. So, like, I know that's, like, but it impacts because of what the grades are. Yeah, my son day trades me, so, like, they have issues.

[00:56:36] But that's, like, the peers. So, yeah. That's got to be a mark of the stuff. Yeah. Maybe he'll be a date for you for real and make money.

[00:58:38] This is my first meeting. I haven't been to any of these things. Thank you.

[00:58:54] I'm just, what was the reason for getting rid of the valedictorian, ludicitorian? I just was curious about that. We have three minutes remaining in our groups. Three minutes.

[00:59:08] The last time, I'm fine with having it that you've tried to do it, right?

[01:00:12] But I know for some of the upper-level math classes that my children have taken, It's actually, it has to be perfect. So they are completing their homework, and it must be perfect in order to get whatever grade it is on it. And then it goes into their score. So I think that kind of does a disservice because I feel like then the teacher does.

[01:00:30] And so then they'll, like, keep doing the homework over and over again because it's online until they get the perfect score. But then the teacher really doesn't know what they know or what they don't know or what needs to, like, be sort of, like, re-looked at. And so I feel like it's kind of a miss, if that makes sense.

[01:00:45] And for some of my students in my house, that was easier than others. You know, I have one son who can just go through it and he's like, oh, I missed that question. That's what it was. And the next time I see it, I know the answer. Where I had others, that was a struggle. And so we just kept doing the same thing over and over again.

[01:01:01] But I don't think the focus was on learning. I think it was just getting the correct answer. But I still think, like, homework should be as a completion and not as a grade. And I think it's fine to have that as a grade of, like, oh, I did the homework.

[01:01:19] One minute remaining, one minute until our next rotation.

[01:02:36] like oh you you're following along and you did long but I don't know that but that being said I don't know that the high school students are ready for that like because then that put like my concern with that if you don't have homework as any part of the grade is that pressure then on

[01:02:53] the test and your performance on that one particular day must be perfect our rotation

[01:04:15] has concluded time to rotate I'm a new guy a person new whatever working agreements what are

[01:08:12] are we talking about? What is it working for? Yes, absolutely. Great question.

[01:08:27] Okay.

[01:08:50] Wow. This is Dawson.

[01:09:08] So really, how do we move discussion for the community and what we know, treasures?

[01:09:28] Do that as well. You've been a grown man child. I'd like to say he's 30 now. Very much.

[01:09:49] Thank you. I'm excited to have you. Thank you. It's freedom, but it's kind of it's loud.

[01:10:11] Maybe not my sister. I'm like, wow. I know. My mom's impressive. No, the fact that you're in high school and you're here at this meeting is what I'm talking about.

[01:10:27] It's impressive. You're very kind, very, very kind. Now I do not look like high school. Do your kids move forward? No, no. My youngest, he's on the guy. He's not really interested in soccer.

[01:10:47] I wish I had a kid who was in the college band. It's a lot. They start in August. Like football? That's just like football. So it's a lot of fun. That's what your kids do?

[01:11:06] No, no, that's my sister's kids who aren't agreed on. Okay. And then her daughter does the manaprogram. That's what my son is doing. Okay, which one is he doing? He's doing cybersecurity. Like, his sister's daughter, is she doing a volleyball?

[01:11:23] Is that the person I'm thinking of? There was somebody that went, yeah, she's not in my life. She just happens to ride the bus with me. Okay. Maybe that's somebody else. Yeah, I don't know, I mean, Caitlin playing, the younger one maybe playing, Abby plays basketball.

[01:11:41] What's your name? I'm Lori. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I just didn't know, like, what are we doing? So I'm just sitting here for, like, 30 minutes, like, you never want to be like, I don't know what's going on.

[01:11:57] So I think the main goal that they want is to, like, so I don't know why we're doing this again. I've done this a few times. Did somebody really go off on somebody in one of these meetings or something? No, but I think they're trying to figure out how to interact or work with us.

[01:12:14] I don't know. But what I would say is they want you to take the thing that's discussed back to the school and then communicate to the parents. And then as we have discussions with, like, what are you saying and giving feedback on that. So in my opinion, I think the most important part of the policy is that's actually what the school has control over is writing of the policy.

[01:12:36] so like the grading policy I think is like and it depends on where your student is like my senior doesn't matter he doesn't care because he's already like physically done but for my freshman whatever they change on the grading policy he then is going to have to adapt to those adjustments for it I was also a teacher at one time and so I kind of feel like you know my information is we don't need to get too experimental with stuff i'm always thinking there's probably like research and policy behind most things that most schools do even if they don't work as well as we would

[01:13:14] like i feel like you sort of enhance those as opposed to ah let's keep a minus and b plus yeah they're gonna keep that what are you talking about no no you don't go to a b c and b because you almost had an A, but not B. No. No way.

[01:13:33] No. Yeah. So this is the fifth year for the grading. They look at all of their policies every five years. They want to have a uniform at every school. Some schools, easy grading.

[01:13:49] Other schools, rigorous grading is difficult. But we see that in our school amongst different... My son is in English this year and he's like I got the teacher very rigorous thank you and he's sort of like and I don't understand and it's funny because when I read the grading policy I was like well that's how it was when we were in school like that is more like how our grades were but if that's not what all of you are doing I understand

[01:14:27] like they all need to be that way none of them need to be that way My oldest, he didn't go to public high school. He went to a boarding school. But the situation is sort of similar in that he always felt like he wanted to take the hardest classes all the time.

[01:14:47] And he has a lot of integrity, and some other students don't. So their math teacher, he was supposed to take honors. I think that was honors pre-calculus he was supposed to take. He didn't take it. So he took regular calculus.

[01:15:04] And the calculus teacher would give students a test that they could take home. And they had 10 days to finish it. That sounds like anybody could just go on the internet and get the answers for that. And you know that's what happened during COVID. Yeah.

[01:15:20] Anybody could just get the answers. And then also, she's like, yeah, I want you to work together in groups for a math test. I was a math teacher. I can't imagine. I can't imagine that. So he worked at it. Do you know versus what do you want? Like do I do the material?

[01:15:37] Yeah, he refused to do that. So he ended up with a B, and those other students ended up with A's, because he just felt like, I refuse to do that. That's hurting him now, because he's flying to college. He just felt like, they'll know what I did, they'll know my work, they'll just know grades.

[01:15:54] And that's a struggle that I take, because we've talked a lot about that, and he's like, if you don't listen, you just learn it.

[01:16:30] It's kind of your problem. It's your problem, but if, you know, so you think that you know how to do this, but you get to college and you don't, how does it help you? I mean, I guess if you get to college, you just make whatever, that's my, sorry.

[01:16:46] Sometimes you're getting delivered. Yeah. You could be in your fraternity and just, you know, get through life like that. People do that. And eventually, I mean, I think it eventually bites you, but.

[01:17:03] I'm a lawyer now. I have a lawsuit against Citibank. My client is seeing a Citibank for $300 million. He has a Ph.D. in economics. He's from Morocco, but he went to college in France.

[01:17:18] He went to the University of Strasbourg. So he has a B.A., a master's in Ph.D. in economics. And he also has a Ph.D. in government. And so he was an investment banker and a banker. And then he went to work at Citibank for this guy, who is, like, the person we just discussed.

[01:17:37] He was in a fraternity in college. This dude didn't learn anything. He didn't even know all of the products that Citibank sells. Yet he was my client's manager. I'll just leave it at that. Yeah. He's going to lose.

[01:17:54] I think it might be helpful to help get people more involved with how they can start reengaging

[01:19:31] back with their community.

[01:22:13] Very in depth to me. If we don't send our update to our principal by Friday, it doesn't get in.

[01:22:32] So it actually would be more helpful to have it Wednesday, probably Wednesday, so that way I could pull from that to provide it for him, because otherwise it doesn't get in. And then by the time it gets to the next week, policy is going to be done or whatever.

[01:22:55] Right, so if you haven't sent it to them prior to that point, they don't do it. To the principal or to the PTSA? So I send it to the principal, and he sends it out on his weekly information or whatever.

[01:23:12] But really, I don't think they're, you know, what they want to know about is what you guys are looking for, what the board is looking for for information, the community, right? Like, they don't care that we've talked about working agreements, unless you're talking about, like, working agreements for the teachers, right?

[01:23:30] Like, that's what they care about, but if it's just like, oh, we talked about that, like, okay, whatever. So I think it's more like you want feedback on a specific policy or you're looking for community input or something. Yeah, because otherwise it's sort of like, oh, great.

[01:23:46] I'm glad you guys talked about that. I'm sorry.

[01:24:13] Since I can still get away with all my questions, who is we? Who are we talking about here? We're talking about every parent, student, teacher. We have three minutes remaining, three minutes in this rotation. The entire room?

[01:25:00] Very specific.

[01:25:30] Sure. Plus let the 14-year-olds know they want to go to science. That to me seems a little, like, I wish they were a little broader. The IB program is more great in their special program. Some of the other ones seem very focused and kind of forcing kids at a younger age to make this decision.

[01:25:50] Well, and I think that's fundamentally some of the issues that I have. Because I feel like it would be nice to have a success of, you know, these are the types of majors that you're set the path that you want to take. These are the types of majors, and this is what it means to be a junior.

[01:26:07] This is what an engineer does, and these are the types of jobs, or this is, you know, what you pick, I don't care. You know, what does economics mean? Yeah. But we don't have that, like a survey, like a survey of majors. But that is what colleges are expecting, how they are expecting our students to apply.

[01:26:23] You can apply general, like you can do that, but it depends on what you're saying as far as whether or not that puts you in a better form or a year. I remember even, you know, if you apply to general arts and sciences, it might be harder to get in or easier.

[01:26:41] Say you're going to apply to, like, the theater program, right? You might get in really easily and then just change your major a month later. One minute, one minute remaining. Is it still possible to do that?

[01:26:57] I know, right? That's great. It depends on the school. Ask it for a friend. It all comes down to economics. You have to switch over, but they don't let us switch over.

[01:27:24] I just told myself. The teachers are doing everybody's message. Did you say they can't transfer over to Forestry? It depends on the university, so, like, Virginia Tech couldn't unless you were then applied to the engineering. You know what I mean? Because they kind of, they know.

[01:27:39] They know that you're, like, trying to get it, right? My son wants to be a computer science major, but, you know, maybe I'm going to have him do Forestry. But it probably won't work. So that's why I say, like, if your university does that, that's fine. But if they don't, then I have to go.

[01:27:58] I'm home and left out of town. I'm in the same situation. Are you? Okay. And I'm getting me where it's food. All right. This is over? They'll close it. But, Gerald, it's nice to meet you.

[01:28:14] And good luck with the college apps. Yeah, you too. All right, everyone. I'm going to have us all come back together. some really great conversations. Thank you for being such active participants. I also want to thank Dr. Spence, Dr. Ellis, and all our LCPS staff for coming out and presenting to us tonight. I encourage everyone to continue fostering two-way communication by sharing the information from this evening with your respective communities and bringing their feedback to the leadership team

[01:28:54] or our group next month. I heard some really great ideas about how you're sharing out with your community so as a committee we're going to talk about how we can share that as a group I really feel like this is our third year I've been here since the beginning and I feel like this year we're really starting to gain some traction get some really great ideas and starting to get the word out so I thank all of our new participants as well as the ones that are that are OGs so thank you appreciate that anyways if you have any questions or need support with community or school engagement are developing your role as your LEAF representative please don't

[01:29:31] hesitate to reach out to me or any of our committee members our emails are on the LEAF website I apologize sometimes it might be like a few days before I get back to you because I tried to forward my email to my personal email and LCPS wouldn't let me so sometimes I forget to check it anyways now moving on to new business is there any new business to discuss before we wrap up tonight Ms. Chernoff has a next step, and one thing I don't want to forget, if you have not signed in, please use the QR code to sign in.

[01:30:02] I didn't want to forget so that you make sure we get your attendance. All right.

[01:30:20] Go ahead. Thank you. And thank you, Ms. Chernoff, for making our policy discussions robust, and we can get feedback in. That's great. Okay.

[01:30:36] I'm now going to adjourn the meeting. Our next meeting is scheduled for November 18th right here in this room. Thank you again for your participation. I am so grateful that all of you are here. I hope you have a safe trip home, and we will see you all next month. Brad.

[01:31:01] Brad membership, too. Oh, okay. But I don't check in.

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