Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, 4th Tuesday School Board Meeting and FY26 Budget Work Session, Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Date: Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 5h 16m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1022342132?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 2026-10-18. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:51] Good afternoon. I call to order this October 22nd, 2024 Loudoun County School Board meeting. At this time, we'll start with disclosures. I will start. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosures to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and relating benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits from LC Plus employees. Specifically as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and

[00:01:29] related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees while in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years.

[00:01:51] Ms. Chandler. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee.

[00:02:17] These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three whose interests may also be affected of which I am included I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest this disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years thank you miss Donahue oh she's not here mrs. Griffiths thank you madam chair as a member of the Loudoun County School Board I make the following disclosure to the school board and add to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget

[00:02:53] and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically as a school board member I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits however affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest this disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years in addition this evening I will be

[00:03:30] voluntarily abstaining from any vote on the consent agenda I am employed by a business associated with a contract that is proposed for an award by the board on the consent agenda and as a result I have a personal interest in the I have a personal interest in the transaction the clerk will please note my abstention and the reason in the record today and in the record at the any future meeting where the board discusses or considers this matter. Thank you. Thank You Vice Chair Struffy. Thank You Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general

[00:04:08] public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically as a school board member I'm eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of

[00:04:40] the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you. Ms. LaBelle. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda by regarding regarding the budget and/or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS

[00:05:14] employees. Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statuatory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the Clerk of the School Board for five years. Thank you, Ms. LaBelle. Ms. Scherner. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to

[00:05:52] the School Board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for lcps employees specifically as a school board member i am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an lcps employee these benefits however affect thousands of employees well in the excess of the statutory three employees whose interest may also be affected of which i am included i can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest this disclosure will be reflected in the public record of the clerk of the school board for five years thank you ms shirnoff ms donahue thank you

[00:06:32] Madam Chair, as a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding employee salaries, the budget, and or health insurance, and any other discussion that may include or affect salary and benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:06:48] Specifically, my spouse, my men, or children, and I are enrolled in LCPS health insurance that may be affected by any potential changes to employee salaries, the budget, and or health insurance. Additionally, my sister-in-law is an LCPS employee who does not reside with me and is not dependent on me. These subjects include thousands of employees while in excess of the statutory three employees whose interest may be affected, of which my spouse, my minor children, my sister-in-law, and I am included.

[00:07:14] I can and will participate fairly objectively in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you, Ms. Donoghue. We will now move on to agenda item three, approval of the consent agenda.

[00:07:40] Board members, are there any changes to be made to the consent agenda? Seeing none, before we vote on the consent agenda, we have two proclamations to read. The first proclamation, recognizing November 11th through 15th as School Psychologists Week, will be read by Ms. Donahue.

[00:08:01] Thank you, Madam Chair. Whereas all children and youth learn best when they are healthy, supported, safe, and receive an education that enables them to thrive academically, socially, emotionally, and behaviorally. And whereas schools can more effectively ensure that all students are able to learn when they meet the needs of the whole child and provide culturally responsive, multi-tiered supports.

[00:08:25] And, whereas children's mental health is directly linked to their learning and development, and the learning environment provides an optimal context to promote good mental health through connectedness within the school and community, and whereas sound psychological principles are integral to instruction and learning, social and emotional development, prevention, early intervention, and school safety, and support of racially and ethnically minoritized student populations.

[00:09:04] And whereas school psychologists are specially trained to provide access to a continuum of mental health services and academic supports that lower barriers to teaching and learning, and whereas school psychologists help children to thrive by nurturing their individual strengths across both personal and academic endeavors, and whereas school psychologists are trained to assess student and systems-based barriers to learning as well as individual strengths, utilize database decision-making, implement resources, driven prevention and intervention strategies and evaluate outcomes and improve accountability and whereas citizens of Loudoun County should recognize the vital role that school psychologists play in the mental health social emotional behavioral and academic development of all children now therefore be it resolved the Loudoun County School Board hereby proclaims

[00:09:44] November 11 through 15 2024 a school psychologist week in Loudoun County to highlight the positive contributions that school psychologists make to the school division. Thank you, Ms. Donohue. The second proclamation recognizing November 2024's Family Engagement in Education Month and affirm LCPS's commitment to fostering strong family and community partnerships will be read by Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair. Whereas the Commonwealth of Virginia is committed to excellence in education and recognizes the importance of family engagement in education in the pursuit of these standards, and whereas the

[00:10:24] Virginia Department of Education recognizes November as Family Engagement in Education Month in emphasizing the importance of familial and parental engagement in schools and its evidence-based impact on student achievement and whereas families are and shall remain the primary educators in their children's lives and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools believes that all families have dreams for their children and want the best for them and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools believes that all families have the capacity to support their children's learning and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools believes that families and school staff are partners in education and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools believes that the

[00:11:04] responsibility for cultivating and sustaining partnerships among school home and the community rest primarily with school staff especially school leaders and whereas family engagement should be a priority at every level of our community's education system from the classroom to the superintendent's office whereas all of Loudoun County Public Schools are enriched by acknowledging affirming and celebrating students and families diverse cultures languages and backgrounds and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools believes and is committed to the culture of continuous improvement which drives the fulfillment of our mission empowering all students to make meaningful

[00:11:41] contributions to the world and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools recognizes that effective family and community engagement is essential to fostering a supportive and inclusive educational environment that empowers students to succeed academically socially and emotionally and now therefore be it resolved that Loudoun County Public Schools recognizes November 2024 as family engagement month in family engagement in education month during which school leaders and staff are encouraged to engage families strengthening home school partnerships in which families are empowered to recognize the value of their role

[00:12:17] in the educational process. Thank you Ms. Chernoff. I will now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Who was it? Ms. Chernoff. Ms. Chernoff we have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a second by Ms. Donahue. It's been properly moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. At this time we'll take a vote to approve the consent agenda. Clerk please

[00:12:44] open the vote. Board members please record your vote. Clerk please close and display the vote. that motion passes eight with mrs griffiths abstaining we will now move to our work session item four 4.01 department of business and financial services fy 26 budget development

[00:13:16] presented by sharon willoughby chief financial officer good afternoon i am here with mr casey jones he is our budget and financial analytics director and he's going to help us with the discussion and obtaining feedback today as we continue our discussion on developing the FY26 budget and build on the work that we started back in June during a school board work session then.

[00:13:54] Since June, the budget team and departments have been diligently working on the budget. There have been numerous meetings, calculations, discussions, and lots and lots of analysis. The team continues to scrub the budget looking at each account's historical spending to identify trends and discrepancies between budget and actual that would warrant further discussion with departments.

[00:14:19] This heavy workload that occurs behind the scenes is a part of every budget process and as in previous years savings and areas are already being identified. Additionally we have formally introduced a return on investment grid analysis into our process to facilitate discussions and decision making. As we continue with our budget discussion, I want to emphasize how challenging it is to balance financial stewardship with what's best for students and families. The work is hard and you have difficult decisions to make. Our goal today is to obtain additional feedback so that there are no surprises in January when the superintendent presents his estimate of needs,

[00:14:58] also referred to as the SEON, that our continued work together results in you not being surprised with budget recommendations in January and that we aren't surprised with a new priority. On this slide, we have captured the feedback that we received during that June school board budget work session. There are 17 items identified on this board, and the threshold of where we drew the line of cutting off the list was items that were supported by at least two or more school board members. The threshold is low, though, due to the many items that you see listed here,

[00:15:35] although you can see a clear consensus on the top of the slide for flexible staffing. I'll share that we used this list in a feedback activity with our principals recently, and they also identified flexible staffing as their top priority. So I believe it is safe to say that we will definitely see some flexible staffing enhancements in the FY26 budget.

[00:15:56] We also have used this list along with the strategic plan and the superintendent's post-entry plan to drive our budget development. Similar to last year, we have budget categories and are using similar language you saw introduced in the capital budget work session a few weeks ago.

[00:16:15] We have three operating investment categories, with the first being continuity of operations. This category is capturing costs required to operate our schools in the system, such as personnel salaries and benefits, utilities, fuel.

[00:16:32] You will also see we have listed annual step increases. This is listed as a requirement, noting that historically LCPS has provided an annual step increase, and if we do not provide one, we jeopardize our scale integrity and will create compression at the beginning of the salary scale.

[00:16:48] Our next category is ongoing initiatives. These are initiatives that have already been approved by the school board that have continuing costs into future years. Examples here are the alternative school and recovery school. Our last category is new initiatives, and these are brand new programs, items, or enhancements for school or a division showing up in the budget.

[00:17:12] An example here would be a new after-school program, and then also a cost-of-living scale adjustment. The cost-of-living scale adjustment is listed here as being discretionary. The priority is the step increase, with scale adjustments historically being programmed in based on budget affordability.

[00:17:34] Now I will share some additional initiatives within those three categories, and I'll also draw your attention to the board over on the left here that we will use in an activity here shortly. As the budget, though, continues to be developed, it is important to note that the information presented on these slides and boards are not all-inclusive and may or may not be included in the FY26C on.

[00:18:02] Numbers will change, and these are preliminary considerations and not necessarily staff recommendations. The first item listed here under Continuity of Operations are position changes in accordance with updated enrollment for next year and the currently adopted staffing standards.

[00:18:18] Currently for this school year, we are about 1,700 students under the budgeted enrollment, and next year's enrollment projection is relatively flat from this year's actual count. That means the budgeted enrollment for next year will be less than this year's budgeted enrollment. And when this reduced enrollment count is calculated into the staffing standards, we are seeing position reductions for general education teachers and supports.

[00:18:43] This reduction, though, is netted against an increase in teachers for special education and English learners as those student populations are continuing to grow. It is important to note, though, that we do not expect any rifts or reduction in force to occur, as normal attrition should be more than enough to cover any position reductions.

[00:19:04] The next item on this list is the salary scale step increase and one-time top-of-scale payments, and as I shared earlier, we consider that a necessary expense. Next, we have estimated a 10% health insurance premium increase at this time, and this is a minimum amount projected to maintain a positive fund balance in the health self-insurance fund.

[00:19:27] As analysis continues, the final recommended premium increase may be even larger in the superintendent's estimate of needs. Finally, we have inflation and usage increases to base operating expenses. These four items that we categorize as required to maintain operations alone total $53.4 million.

[00:19:49] Our next category is ongoing initiatives. There are eight identified ongoing initiatives that we would like your feedback on. I'll briefly go through each item, noting that not all the details may be readily available, but I do have my colleagues ready to answer any additional questions.

[00:20:10] The first item you'll see is additional resources for existing special programs, such as the Access Academy and the Dual Language Immersion Program at some of our elementary schools. Next, we have funding to support the expansion of the alternative school as well as funding for the continued rollout of the recovery school.

[00:20:31] Next, we have additional positions to support expanded staffing flexibility to meet student needs. We also have funding to support a multi-year phased plan to support the EL Welcome Center in the Leesburg and Sterling locations.

[00:20:49] We also have blue ribbon panel recommendations regarding safety and security initiatives identified. To support the health clinic, we have the continued transition to provide a school nurse at every school. And last on the list, additional funding to support student behavior regarding a next phase expansion of providing additional behavior specialists to our elementary schools.

[00:21:14] These, again, are preliminary considerations, and additional refinement is ongoing, but we will ask you here shortly to help prioritize these initiatives along with our new initiatives. These ongoing initiatives are costed at about $21 million, bringing our running total to approximately $75 million.

[00:21:35] So to put it in perspective, maintaining base operations and continuing initiatives that we have already started is estimated to cost $75 million. so again the dollars do add up very quickly on our new initiative slide in board we actually have two tables we have 13 items that we would like your feedback on as I've mentioned earlier and especially for this category the items listed are not all inclusive and there may be others in the final FY26 Sion at this point in time these are some of the themes that we have identified

[00:22:13] you will also see items that cross over to the capital budget so just keep in mind financial impacts can occur in both the operating and capital budgets. Items here include funding to support the continued planning for a new transition school. We've identified starting a pilot after school program. There is a considerable dollar amount of $56 million to support a 4% cost of living adjustment to our salary scales. The 4% was selected to mirror what we have currently in

[00:22:48] this year's adopted budget. We next have an initiative to remove fees for instructional consumables so that we no longer charge our students and families for those items. There are additional safety and security enhancements along with resources to expand world languages in some of our high schools. Moving to the right side, we have an initiative to increase the fine arts school allotment as well as the elementary fine arts stipend. There's an item to fund additional

[00:23:23] resources to address student anxiety, as well as provide additional athletic trainers to achieve two per high school. Another initiative is additional special programs, such as a global and linguistics study academy and an environmental science education program.

[00:23:44] Next, we have a specific recruitment and retention initiatives for the transportation area. Next, expansion of our IB school in either the eastern or southern region of the district.

[00:24:01] And last on the list is to continue tutoring services by moving that into our local funds where it is currently funded in an All in Virginia grant. These items may be in more rough draft form with high level cost estimates.

[00:24:21] This feedback activity we are about to ask you to do will help focus our budget work. For example, if after-school programs was not identified as a top priority, staff could prioritize their work to fully build out other initiatives that are identified as a top priority.

[00:24:37] These new items that, again, aren't an all-inclusive list of new items are not an all-inclusive list of new items for the budget, but themes and specific initiatives, and they total $83.5 million. So this slide alone is $83.5 million. Adding this to our running total brings the total to $158 million.

[00:24:57] I feel confident that the CYON will not reflect a $158 million budget increase, which is why this work session is so important. Your feedback will help us ensure that your priorities are seen in the budget as much as they can be afforded.

[00:25:13] So you should have in front of you a paper copy representing each one of those slides I went through. I'll share that we are copying the capital budget activity that you did a few weeks ago, so this hopefully will be familiar to you. The first category of the sheets that you have in front of you of the continuity of operations, for the sake of this exercise, we will assume our required priorities that will be in the FY26C on. So I will ask that

[00:25:51] you focus your work on the other two categories of ongoing initiatives and new initiatives. So if you just want to maybe flip that one upside down, that would be great. So again, we're just going focus on ongoing initiatives and new initiatives. We will start by asking you to write down your top three priorities from those two categories and then I will ask you to verbally share your priorities so that Mr. Jones can note those priorities on the board. So right now I will give you a few minutes to write those down and then I will ask that you take turns and verbally share out your top three

[00:29:37] priorities. Now that we've had a few minutes and I think some of you may be complete. I don't know If we want to maybe start from left to right and start with Dr. Deans, if you wouldn't mind sharing out your top three priorities. My top three include the alternative school on ongoing, on new initiatives, the salary scale adjustment, and number three, safety and security enhancements.

[00:30:13] Thank you. Mrs. Chandler? I would start on ongoing initiatives with safety and security initiatives. That would be my number one. Number two would be on the new initiatives transition school.

[00:30:34] And number three would be after school programming or programs. Thank you. Thank you. My number one is safety and security enhancements. I personally like tutoring services for kids that are struggling.

[00:30:55] And that would be my number two. And after school programs are much needed throughout the county. So I would say that's my number three. Thank you. I think my number one would be the transition school.

[00:31:13] Number two would be flexible staffing. And number three would be alternative school. My number one any day of the week would be flexible staffing. Number two is after school programs.

[00:31:31] And number three would be international IB program expansion. My number one is alternative school. My number two is health clinic staffing.

[00:31:46] and my number three is very much neck and neck between after-school programs and athletic trainers. Thank you. I will seal Arben's line any day of the week. My number one is flexible staffing. Needs-based versus numbers-based staffing is really important to me. Number two is safety and security initiatives. I wish I could tuck the enhancements in with it but I know that's not the activity. And then my number three is also after school programs. And I feel like the fine

[00:32:23] arts allotment and stipends would really support that. So tucking that in too. Thank you. All right. My number one is special programs. My number two is resources for world language expansion.

[00:32:42] And my number three is health clinic staffing. Thank you. My number one is the transition school.

[00:32:59] number two safety and security initiatives and number three is flexible staffing great thank you so much for that feedback before we move to the next phase of our activity i also wanted to mention that you should have some post-it notes also available and you can jot down any other items not not identified on the boards or to address any items on the first board the continuity of

[00:33:30] operations. We will collect those post-it notes after the work session during the break. So now for part two of our activity, you should also now have your little spending dots. Again, very similar to what you did with the capital budget exercise. As before, those dots are your commerce and you get to show how you would spend your dots on the two boards. Again, we're focusing on ongoing initiatives and new initiatives. I'll ask you to step down from the dais to spend your dots on

[00:34:04] those two boards. You can spread your dots out across initiatives on those two boards, or you can invest heavily in one area. The choice is yours. And so I will now ask you to go ahead and

[00:34:17] come down and spend your dots. Ms.

[00:35:04] Willoughby, Ms. Willoughby, Ms. Willoughby, Sharon, they're asking if they can only put it on the circles or on any of them? Any on ongoing initiatives or new initiatives. Chair, I have one more question.

[00:35:25] Should we do the three that we already told you or should load those up as well or is this just all new? Load those up as well.

[00:35:34] Okay, you got it.

[00:38:02] Yeah, I got you. All is good in the world.

[00:38:54] All right.

[00:39:21] Yeah. Can't be all things to all people. It would be nice if we could. There's a lot of good stuff on that. Thank you for participating in this activity and also just a quick thanks to Mr. Lewis's team for developing this activity that we were able to copy and make this work session so much easier. Again, I just can't stress enough of how this

[00:39:59] crucial feedback opportunity for each of, how crucial of an opportunity this is for each of you to provide this feedback, and I appreciate your thoughtfulness in prioritizing and recognizing again how tough this task is. Next, I have two very specific questions around compensation that I would like to ask that will help us prioritize how we fund compensation in FY26. As you know, We are a personnel-heavy organization with 90% of our budget-supporting personnel costs.

[00:40:31] That is why it doesn't take a lot in the compensation area to spend millions and millions of dollars. But with fiscal constraints, I am seeking your direction on how to prioritize funding. As you see by this illustration, there is a compensation bowl on one side of the scale and an initiatives bowl on the other side.

[00:40:49] With the funding available to you, so if I gave you a stack of cash, Would you invest more on the compensation bowl? Would you put more of the funding into the initiatives bowl? Or would you invest evenly between the two?

[00:41:06] I will now ask each of you to verbally share how you would prioritize funding. Again, compensation, initiatives, or evenly. Again, recognizing these are tough questions, but your feedback is very important for us to develop the budget that meets your vision as well.

[00:41:23] So, again, if I can start with Dr. Deans, and we'll record your answers. Dr. Deans, could you go over compensation versus initiatives, like one more time, like what kinds of examples? Compensation would be the cost of living adjustment, as well as a step increase.

[00:41:43] It could include any bonus initiatives. So, anything related to pay and benefits, we would capture as compensation. Initiatives would be pretty much all the other things, you know, all the other items we have talked about this evening aside from the pay, if that's helpful.

[00:42:03] I will mention also this year's budget, just as a reminder, you may recall the scale. If we were to put the FY25 budget into these two bowls, it's heavily invested in compensation.

[00:42:19] That's how the FY25 budget was built. Are we okay to proceed with Dr. Deans? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Willoughby. I think that we should equally go between the two, because I think that with us being in such close proximity to other good school divisions, that if our compensation, whether they're benefits or salaries, are not commensurate with those around us, then other divisions will take our good people.

[00:42:56] But I also feel very strongly about initiatives because I think that what I find or see is that the students who are requiring an alternative setting for learning, that number is growing.

[00:43:23] And so as a result, I think that we should never deny any student the opportunity to learn so we would need an appropriate placement for those students. So I guess I would go equal-equal, but those are the reasons.

[00:43:41] I think we have to strike a delicate balance, and I know it's a lot to ask staff to thread that needle, but honestly, the visual works for me. it looks like we have to figure out a way to approach both to serve the needs of our students and our teachers it's really hard to tell you whether I'm more for compensation or initiatives you know we're going to be going through this budget and there's a lot of bloat in the budget so a lot of things may be cut or moved around so of course I feel like teachers deserve the proper

[00:44:21] compensation but with more budget talks I think I'll be able to answer better thank you I don't think I could have said anything more beautifully than Dr. Dean said I think it's more equal because I think we're especially alternative placements and things like that I agree as well I think that so much is driven by the neighboring divisions around I think are we have to remain competitive

[00:44:56] and compensation has to weigh heavily on us. I think we have to look for, rather than just answer the question of whether it's compensation or initiatives, I think it's relatively even or dependent upon what's going to keep us competitive or in front of the edge.

[00:45:16] I think also we can look at opportunities that might also help us from a compensation perspective, like filling some of the specialized roles, incentivizing potentially Title I educators.

[00:45:32] So looking at where we get the biggest value for some of the other areas that we need to fill. So some of those specialized positions. And I just want to say one thing about the initiatives.

[00:45:49] When I look at the board between ongoing and new initiatives, I'm very proud of all of those initiatives. I think that combined brainpower between staff and all of the different perspectives on the board I think regardless of what ends up being prioritized or you know what ends up being chosen based on some of the trade-offs I'm I would support any one of those initiatives I think so just wanted to go out there and say that. So this is

[00:46:22] difficult to it's difficult I think to answer at the high level without specifics in front of us um my gut leaning is to say i think i would probably lean a little bit more in the direction of initiatives um and that being said i i hope that um i hope that that is not going to be taken as as me in any way suggesting that we should not be adequately compensating our staff and our

[00:46:58] educators um and it is important to make sure that we are remaining competitive with our surrounding jurisdictions but I also believe that as we are moving forward with the collective bargaining process that that is going to have some effect on the decisions that we make up here and where we're putting our funds and for me I know from some previous conversations with staff like I understand the last few years we even has to invested very heavily on the compensation and and recruitment packages that we offer to new educators,

[00:47:38] for example. So in that, if we are looking at that group of what are we doing for compensation here, then that is an area where, to me, I'm saying, OK, we have invested a lot in that area recently. And I don't think that it would be a bad thing to now maybe wait somewhat more in the direction of initiatives.

[00:48:00] But on the other hand, I also am given understand that there are other areas where we have not necessarily been focusing so much on ensuring that the compensation of our educators who are at different levels of their careers where we are keeping up with our competitors where we are providing them the incentives that we need to to keep them here that would be an area where I would probably be more inclined to say okay well in this area maybe we should be weighing more on the side of compensation so I guess my

[00:48:38] answer is in general I would lean slightly more on the side of initiatives but not I mean certainly not completely one over the other and it will also depend on the specific choices in front of me I'm gonna tip the scale a little bit more towards compensation I would probably go 60-40 on this I'm grateful for the commitment to compensation last year.

[00:49:07] I'm thinking of this as sort of like a snapshot in time, knowing that my answer next year could be different and hopefully will be different. I love the idea of all these initiatives. I think this county has a lot of innovative ideas and has a great vision forward for meeting the needs of our diverse learners.

[00:49:26] However, if we don't have teachers in our classrooms, the needs are definitely not getting met. And so that's kind of where I always go back to. And I'm still really struggling with the idea that teachers cannot afford to live and work here. And as I look at those graphs that we're going to go over next, you know, those gaps still exist.

[00:49:45] And we really, I think we, I personally prioritize making sure that our people, our good people that are here want to stay here and that we're taking care of them. And that we also are a place where people want to come and work.

[00:50:02] And so that's kind of where I'm resting with this. Like Ms. Donahue said, it's a tough question. I don't feel like the lines are clear cut here. Some of our initiatives are going to need to be compensated. So there's a lot to consider, but I think that's where I sit right now.

[00:50:17] I echo Ms. Chernoff's sentiments. For me, the scale tips towards compensation. And I find that teachers are, or the salary for them in terms of living here in Loudoun County is quite expensive.

[00:50:33] it could be a huge burden and especially with the teacher shortage that's another challenge although I do agree that both are important I don't like to pick one or the over the other but just slightly if it were just like maybe a few pennies more in terms of weight I don't know but I definitely do lean towards compensation more than initiatives I'm going to go the opposite direction from Ms.

[00:51:00] Chernoff and Dr. Rashid. I see safety and security and the alternative school, which are ongoing initiatives, as going hand in hand. They are both keeping our students safe. On the other hand, we can look at the COLA, the adjusted salary scale. We can look at the transition school, athletic trainers, the world language programs, all new initiatives that benefit both students and teachers when we look at them.

[00:51:37] So I think I'm going to lean a little heavier on new initiatives while keeping up with our ongoing initiatives. Thank you. Thank you. This illustration I think really does picture what we talk about in terms of competing priorities and again and how tough this is.

[00:52:00] The second question that I have is more specific related to compensation and asks how you would invest funding specifically for salary scale A, also known as our teacher scale. I'll start with orienting you to the line chart shown on the slide, as well as sharing some historical information.

[00:52:19] And at the end, I'm going to be asking you to pick an option, one, two, or three. The line chart is the same for each option, with just the circle moving based on the option. The line chart itself is showing annual salary amounts on the vertical axis, and steps of the salary scale are along the bottom.

[00:52:39] The top green dotted line represents the FY24 market average for the teacher master lane. The red line is LCPS's current FY25 master lane. And then the blue line is LCPS's master lane for last year.

[00:52:57] You will see how LCPS's starting salary is at or slightly above the market average at the beginning on the left of the line chart and remains competitive with the market until around step 12 or 13, and that is then when LCPS begins to lag behind the market or create a sag in the line, and that's where we see that white space start to develop between the green dotted line and the red line.

[00:53:23] Historically, between fiscal year 16 and fiscal year 20, LCPS's strategic plan at that time specifically had goals to improve starting teacher salaries to be number one in the region, to improve recruitment, and also to improve step 10, which was a benchmark for our competitors in the annual Wavy Guide.

[00:53:46] So funds during those years were invested targeting those steps one through 10. LCPS was successful in raising teacher salaries to be number one in the region. However, we still lag behind in the mid-career steps, especially after Step 10. Beginning in FY22, funds were then invested to target the mid-career steps and focused on retention as we continue to see teachers leave LCPS.

[00:54:13] We've made some progress over the years, but still lag behind our competitors. So I am now here to ask you your compensation philosophy and how to invest funds for the teacher salary scale. Option one would continue to address the mid-career SAG and target steps roughly included in the bubble.

[00:54:32] This is what we also did this year in FY25. This means employees on those steps in the bubble would receive a larger adjustment or pay increase than those outside the bubble. As an illustrative hypothetical example only, if we were applying a 4% targeted average increase, Steps in the bubble may receive a 6% pay increase, and those outside the bubble would receive 2%.

[00:54:57] That is what we mean by targeted. Of course, all employees, regardless of what step they are on, are highly valuable and appreciated. With limited funding, the question is whether or not to continue to address this section of the scale. Again, and that would be option one.

[00:55:14] Option two would return to focusing on the starting steps and providing a larger pay increase there. and that's why you see the bubble shifted towards those starting steps and option three would apply funding evenly to all steps meaning if a four percent COLA was implemented all steps would receive a four percent increase so essentially the line would just lift in unison. I will now ask you to verbally share which option you would prefer and again this helps give us direction in terms of prioritizing funding and how to develop the teacher salary scale for FY26

[00:55:54] And so I will start with Dr. Deans and we'll ask if you will just share option one, two or three as being your preference. I would choose option three because if we choose option two, we get the new teachers in and we train them and then they leave.

[00:56:14] So I would say option three where we do it across the board. I believe option one is the most logical approach because it would have a bigger impact on the people who are committed and are here for the long haul.

[00:56:39] I agree. Option one is probably the best one, best step. Thank you. I would pick option one because something that happens in like special education is they're here for five years or whatever and then they go away or they get, you know, they become CIFs or educational diagnosticians and we lose them.

[00:57:02] And I want them to be able to stay in the classrooms if they so choose and not go to administration if they don't want to and be able to get paid accordingly if they want to stay with the kids. So option one. It's option one for me as well, seeing that we do have some catch up to do as well in option one, as you've stated.

[00:57:25] Also, the feedback that I've received talking to principals and staff, that specifically staff and educators that have been here for quite a long time and in the schools, especially our Title I schools, and chosen to stay in those communities, just, you know, it has not gone unnoticed that, you know, that focus on the early career.

[00:57:44] And it has been a bit of a morale dip from the feedback that I've received. I'm conscious that the people that I've talked to may not be representative, but that is the feedback that I've received. And I think that that's the way to go. Option one.

[00:58:03] Thank you. Option one. Option one for the same reasons as Chair Mansfield. Option one as well. Thank you so very much.

[00:58:21] Before I move to summarizing and closing out the work session activity, I wanted to also give an opportunity, perhaps if Ms. Madison Lowe had, since she's been so attentive, paying attention as we work through all the slides and information, if there was any feedback that she would like to share as being an LCPS student or priorities that she would want to see in the budget for next year.

[00:58:49] And I know I'm totally putting you on the spot. I would love to see some additional resources for the IB program. That's something that I'm definitely really interested in, and it's not offered at many schools in Loudoun County.

[00:59:11] We do have a lot of AP courses and DE courses, but expansion into the IB program would be a great opportunity for our students. Thank you so much, and again, especially since I put you on the spot with no warning. So the feedback, again, we received today is instrumental in shaping the CION.

[00:59:34] you will see in January. We will continue our work developing the budget and once budget guidance is received from the county, which we anticipate happening around November 12th, we can marry our spending priorities with available funding to begin the next phase and painful phase of trimming the budget. There will likely be items seen today that are very important needs but have to be delayed as funding will not support it. At the second November meeting, I'll be back to present an update on the county funding guidance, an update on summarizing the information that we gathered here today, as well as what present our FY26 preliminary fiscal forecasts. This will identify

[01:00:13] funding gaps and unmet needs. In December, we'll receive the state budget information, and then we will roll into January when Dr. Spence will present his FY26 estimate of needs. You will begin your review process, and before you know it, you will have adopted your second LCPS budget. As always, i am available to me at any time to discuss your priorities answer any questions as we work to develop the budget together so i thank you and if there are any questions at this time i'd be happy

[01:00:43] to answer them i see heads saying no more questions thank you ms willoughby and we will move on to 4.02 department of support services uh superintendents recommended fiscal year 2026 fiscal year 2031. I can't even imagine 2031. What's that going to look like? Capital Improvement Program and Capital Asset Preservation Program budgets presented by Mr. Kevin Lewis, our Chief

[01:01:22] Operations Officer.

[01:01:38] Thank you, Chair Mansfield, members of the board, Dr. Spence. We are very happy to be here tonight. And by we, I mean all my directors that are back behind me that have done all the work to get us here tonight. And so I just become the mouthpiece. So I'm happy to share tonight with you the information related to the FY26-231 CIP. I'll also say that this is also a product of a great partnership with Ms. Willoughby and her team in the Department of Business and Finance, and we will just jump right in, and knowing we've got 30 minutes, but I think there should be plenty of time to go over that. I'll start by saying that our CIP, as always, is rooted

[01:02:16] in and based upon the goal three, the strategic plan for excellence, and, you know, you see there that this includes the obligation to create a safe and productive learning environment, and that's what our capital budget does. It may be possible for the CIP to be seen as a wish list, but it's actually a capital investment that is actually a commitment and an obligation for us to maintain this learning environment that we create for our students to learn in and our staff to teach in.

[01:02:50] Just from a quick housekeeping perspective, we're going to go over it in a little bit more detail, but at your workstations tonight, Ms. Tate dropped off a copy, a written copy, a hard copy of the CIP, which is a great volume of information, and so we'll try to walk you through that over tonight and in the future work sessions, and it does include the short-term plan for the first six years of 26 to 31 but also the long-term plan for 32 to 55 and it also includes much detail about each area you'll see that it has the facility analysis that's where you'll find the individual

[01:03:29] projections for each of the schools as we go through the the planning process the next thing i'll do is share with you this is a document that you've seen a few times before and it outlines the different categories investment categories and we've talked about those But just here as a reminder, the types of projects that fall within those major categories of sustainment, new capacity, and improvements for the capital inventory.

[01:03:56] I also wanted just to provide some background, if you're not aware, that a previous board in 2020 took action to adopt a resolution on how we go about maintaining our facilities.

[01:04:12] And, you know, it talks specifically about environmental literacy, the ability or the efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. We're currently doing a greenhouse gas inventory, and it talks about our capital investment, energy use, as well as transportation. And this is, I think, critical for you all to know that some of the decisions we make, some of the things that we do in our capital program are related to this resolution.

[01:04:38] But it's also party combined with, I think of a term there, with policy 6410. And what that policy is is our high performance design and construction that also outlines the things we're going to do. It has best management practices for, and a suite of resources like the EPA Energy Star program that we participate in and have for years.

[01:04:59] are a leader across the country in that, as well as the lead program that is run by the United States Green Building Council, and that helps inform all of our staff decisions and recommendations through there. And so if you have any questions specific to that, we're most happy to talk about those as we go through the process. Next, I want to turn to the exercise we did on September 24th, and it was very similar, if not exactly what you just did for the operating budget, and we're very thankful for your attentiveness and efforts to help us understand what your priorities are. And so what you see on this screen, on the left-hand side, you can just see photographs

[01:05:38] of the working documents that we had in the room that night. But we also have taken a product and as you saw when we started the exercise, we asked you each to name your top three. And so each of those things were either circled or had check marks on those and we assigned those a value of 10 points and then each of you spent your dots on other priorities across the program and those were all given a value of five points so circles checks were 10 and the dots were five and that's how we came up with this point total and now you see the results of that your priorities starting

[01:06:13] with the independent uh living labs you down the road you see the top 10 of your priorities there from a capital perspective so that was very helpful for us and you know we'll be talking about that as we go through, but a couple things I want to really point out to you is high up on your list of priorities, and you just reiterated that with the previous exercise, was the recovery school, the transition facility, and special programs. And I just want to call those out in particular this evening from a capital perspective, because they come with a great deal of effort to put a program like that together, but they also need a home. And so as you identify those as your

[01:06:53] priorities for that, then as staff, it's our job to try to find you a way to facilitate through the capital budget where that program or those programs will be located, when we can bring that on board, and how we go about doing that. So I just wanted to call that out. Those are of particular interest from the staff, and we have focused on those because you all have identified those as your priorities, so it helps us know where we have to focus our attention. So this slide is just a little exercise in trying to illustrate to you the the significant investment

[01:07:29] that the capital program represents and you see there on the left is that the new capacity construction is a little iron bar in this graph that is that represents the construction of a particular facility proportionally in relation to the rest of the expenses over the life of the school and many people believe that once you build a building that's probably the most expense you'll ever put provide in a particular building but in this case this graph is very clear to show you that it's really not and as that graph goes across from left to right you'll see that we we spend money in that orange bar to build the facility and then there's really that the red area

[01:08:06] represents the maintenance and upkeep of the building over time that we do through some of our operating budget but also through the cap that you as part of this program and you'll see that in year one there's very little maintenance because the building's brand new. As time goes on in the next 30 years, that cost increase over and over again in that inclined plane.

[01:08:26] And then it ultimately culminates in the half-life, which is the 30-year point, where we need to do a critical system replacement because all those systems are now wearing out. Air-cademic systems, those types of systems, generally have a lifespan of about 30 years. So we're going to invest a significant amount of money.

[01:08:44] You can see it actually costs more than it did to build the building before, Most of that is because it's a significant amount of work, but it's also because of inflation over time continues to grow with the construction program. After that, critical system replacements, which falls in that sustainment category of the CIP, you'll see that maintenance falls off again and goes down almost to zero and then starts to build again until we reach the life of the facility, which is considered about 75 years, and that's included in our policy as well.

[01:09:15] And then we will bring to you a consideration of whether or not we renovate or replace that facility like we have over the last couple years on certain projects. But you can see the costs of that are significantly more than what we started with 75 years before then when we started building that building.

[01:09:33] So now if you can just visualize taking this graph and stacking 100 of these on top of each other, That's the extent of the program when we have 100 schools and we have to find a way to maintain and fund those facilities. And so, as you can imagine, and as you've probably seen and are experiencing, it's a lot of work and it's a lot of choices and a lot of decisions have to be made to make sure that we keep each and every individual classroom up to what's expected for students in our classrooms.

[01:10:05] So, we have to figure out how we're going to manage that process. and as we try to figure out what we as a staff recommend to you as a board on how to do that we started by taking a facility condition assessment and we've done these for years over and over again we do those every so often because as you can imagine you know one year a facility needs certain things if we do those within the cap or the operating budget or the CIP then that that facility doesn't need that much work anymore so what we do is we bring in a third party consultant, architects, and engineers. They walk through all of our buildings that fit into a

[01:10:41] certain category or criteria, and in this particular case, the criteria is any buildings that have that half-life, 35 years or more, and we have 25 buildings that fall into that category. So the consultants went through each of those buildings. They looked at the building and the site. They looked at interior and exterior, all the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, and then this year we've done something different than we've done in the past, which has changed the outcome of the report that we did we provided to the board last year of the prior board and this year we took an assessment of the program and what that means is we take each building and compare it to our

[01:11:17] educational specifications which is as our document that says we need to have so many classrooms for this so many classrooms for that so many offices for staff so many offices for special ed all the different programs what every single space in that building is done and we compared it to those existing buildings of that of that list to see how they they matched up to that list and to help us make sure that that building will be suitable for the purpose that it's it's serving and that's to educate students so i want to go back to and point out one quick thing about policy 4160 which is the

[01:11:56] capital improvement program policy and it lists out some factors that we need to consider when we're doing that and we use those factors to help us with our priorities in conjunction with your priorities. And those factors are the adaptability for continued use for the present purpose.

[01:12:11] That means, does it still work? You know, right now we're designing collaboration spaces. The buildings that are designed today are done differently than they were 75 years ago. And as we did this very assessment a couple of years ago for the Parkview facility, we realized that building no longer met its intended purposes and it was suitable for a rebuild rather than a renovation. We also look at the suitability of the overall campus, and that's something I want you to think. I would give a couple examples here, but last year's results of this program

[01:12:44] had identified Sterling Middle School and Loudoun County High School as a main priority because of the weighted survey and the weighted efforts we gave to the overall campus, and so I'll explain that a little bit more, but just know that that is where some of the consideration of these things came from. And we're also used maintenance costs and the historic value or significance of a building. Back to the example earlier of Parkview, that building did not have historic significance to the community as in comparison to the Banneker School, which we also renovated, which it did. So

[01:13:22] we made a different decision as we got to that 75-year mark. We made a different decision for Parkview than we did for Banneker because we're following this criteria and that's how you know as we went through there it made sense for the process so what you see here on this slide is a result of that and as I mentioned before we've changed the the recommendation from last year was that Sterling Middle School and Loudoun County High School would be the first product program prop first facilities identified for either a complete renovation or a rebuild for

[01:13:58] that what we've done is realized that in that going back to policy 4160 where the suitability overall campus what was putting both of those schools over the edge was they both have a significant parking issue if you've ever been to sterling middle school you can't find a parking space and that's because probably eight or nine years ago i was a part of putting an addition in the middle of the parking lot and took away some of the parking at loudon county high school we have 60 students on a waiting list because there's no there's not enough parking there so we knew that those two schools were doing, but the building itself wasn't scoring that poorly, so it was kind of skewing the results. So we, at this point, are recommended in this program that we address that

[01:14:38] parking issue at both of those schools, and you'll see that in FY26, which is this first year, we're proposing to do the Sterling Middle School, and then in FY29 and 31, which are still the same years that they were in last year's CIP, we start with the Loudoun County High School parking improvements. But then we go to the list of schools that scored the highest on that needs list for that consideration at the build out of the building. So, and then you'll see there, then that becomes Hamilton Elementary, Meadowland Elementary, and Sully Elementary, that in that order is how they scored in the facility condition assessment once we took those two parking

[01:15:16] projects out of the mix. So, that would be the first five schools. And then on the right-hand side of the list, you will see that those are the schools in order of how we would address them moving forward as this program continues. So we would have those starting at Seneca, Algonquin, Luckett, those projects. A couple things I wanted to call to your attention is at the bottom four of the list on the right, you'll see Aldi Elementary and Lincoln Elementary, and the two stars for that identified, you can see on the left where we have those notes where it says they have some site constraints, inability to expand, limited enrollment, so we're not

[01:15:55] proposing that they be on that list for serious consideration at this point. That's a staff recommendation. The board, we're looking forward to feedback from the board, and then we also have called out Middleburg and Hillsborough, which were included in our facility condition assessment, but we have put them down at the bottom of that list because the board has not given us direction to include those in there, so we're not recommending to move those within that list, but we just want you to know that they were a part of the assessment and what we would be looking for the board to give us guidance on whether or not they would be a priority to add those back into

[01:16:30] the list. Okay. So again, just a reminder that decisions, and we have lots of lots and lots of decisions to make. And when we do that, it does have impacts on other projects. And so right now we have a number of projects that have been delayed over time. The art rooms come into mind based on decisions that have been made in the recent past for good reason, and we supported that. But just know that that does have an effect on projects. And we know we've had conversations with some of you about things you want to see in there. And if we move some projects in, then

[01:17:06] that would move something else out. It's just one of those things just to be aware of over time. So now we get to the meat of the presentation. And I want to be able to call your attention to your books so if if you could turn to page three of this book is an expanded version of the chart you see on the screen and this is where we've listed all the projects and i just want to be able to go through with you across that page and make sure everyone is understands what it is we're

[01:17:44] looking at lights can we turn lights on in the dais could you put some lights on up here there you go okay so a couple things to point out is on the very first column on the left is a line number and so that helps us know which line we're talking about so we just refer to that so it's there's a lot of information here and it's sometimes hard to find the pay the column right after that is the page number in this book that you can find more detail so you can go to any of those page numbers

[01:18:21] that are referenced there and you can find more detail about that specific project then in the third column you see the project name and then in the fourth column we have identified those in the investment categories that the board has we've been talking about all along just so you can keep track of where they fit in the the grand scheme of the types of projects fourth column is your priorities in the and you'll see each of the projects prioritized like the slide we saw earlier with how they scored on the September 24th listing the fifth column

[01:18:55] you'll see there is identified under year one and then there are two columns underneath of that and today we're talking about the FY26 recommended needs based and I want to make sure it's very clear that these are all the projects listed and at this point we're a little bit ahead of the fiscal guidance from the county of Loudoun so we can't say for you that you have so much money to make but what so much money to spend but we have the cost of each of those projects it goes all the way down, and I'll call your attention to line 57, and line 57 is the total

[01:19:31] that was appropriated by the Board of Supervisors in last year's CIP for FY26. Line 58 is the total of all the column above there, and what that results in is right now our CIP needs-based list is $87 million above what was funded last year, and so it's not to panic. It's just to know that that's where we are to this day, we'll get guidance from the supervisors and we'll be able to come back. And you'll see that the title of that column is November 12th update. We anticipate to have that information. And so when we come back to the board, we'll have that line populated with

[01:20:10] more information for boards. So that'll identify, at least at some level, some of the decisions that will be needed to be made as we move forward. I do want to call attention to a couple of things on there on lines two three and four those are projects for the capital asset preservation plan so that's embedded in this sheet as well and then the other two are critical systems and energy conservation projects which fall in that primary category for sustainment the the latter two were not funded last year at all and so these have been added into there and that's partially what's

[01:20:46] causing that addition is that last year there was not funding to do those and so those were zero doubt. And then the cap was funded at a lesser amount, but it was just, those are some of the things that we'll be calling attention to as we move forward. Also, if you look at line 23, we have property, land acquisition, and due diligence, and that's a big number of $40 million. And I'll just share back a few minutes ago, we talked about special programs, the recovery school, the transition school that don't have a home. And so this is our area to try to identify where we would

[01:21:22] either buy at least or build space for those programs and those are things we're going to have to talk through as we get farther but again those were identified by board members as the priorities so that's why we put them there and so right now we need to be you know aware that our goal is to find you a method or a way to fund your priorities and so that's why it's there I think it's probably likely that that will exceed the county guidance and we'll have decisions to make and when you think about that the board has other tools to be able to manage issues like that you have redistricting you can do you can repurpose an existing building all those things we can have

[01:22:01] conversations about but it is something that we are very interested in and getting some guidance from the board because you know the transition school in particular is is right now planned to be stood up in the fall of 2028 and in construction period that's day after tomorrow so we really need to start to be able to provide that.

[01:22:23] You know, if we were to purchase or repurpose a facility, that would be done quicker. But we plan for worst case in our area so we can try to meet those deadlines. You know, another thing that we do believe over time, I think you'll recall, we put in modular classrooms at Potomac Falls High School this year to manage their enrollment plus a program there.

[01:22:45] That pressure on enrollment will continue to grow. And so, you know, one of the things we could do is, looking forward, is it better to have the Robey folks at Dominion into their own facility and be able to manage that end of the way.

[01:23:00] And so those are lots of conversations we can have moving forward, but I just wanted to put that on your primer there so you're aware that these are decisions we're going to have to be making over time. So keeping track of time.

[01:23:17] We have three more work sessions for you, and you see those there on November 12th, November 19th. December 2nd. And you see what we're going to talk about there on the 12th, we're going to talk about the capital budget updates. That's the guidance we're hoping to get. We'll talk about new capacity projects. November 19th, we're going to be talking about sustainments and playgrounds. We know that that's a topic many of you have interest in. So we're going to completely roll out our total playground program. And then on December 2nd, we'll talk about the improvements. If you think back when we did the exercise on your priorities, the improvements is where most of your focus was

[01:23:54] on. So I encourage you to ask questions ahead of time so that when we get to that, we can address that and be able to have, as staff, we can be prepared to be able to answer your questions. Dr. Rasheed, you asked some questions about playgrounds, and so we're preparing for that conversation. And anybody else that has that, please send those. You can send questions directly to me, and then we'll make sure we get those and be able to put them in and make them part of the presentation moving forward. So don't be shy. Ask the questions as early as possible so we can have the time to get you a full answer and information that you can make decisions upon.

[01:24:33] And it looks like I have run out of slides and almost run out of time. We have a little bit of time for questions. So I'm happy to take anything you may have. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Yes, Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you for the presentation, Mr. Lewis, and thank you for meeting with me previously.

[01:24:52] Can you clarify, my understanding is, if something comes up, a project, much needed projects are pushed back. If something else comes up, you tend to go to something that might be a little bit more important. So if you can clarify for me, where does renaming schools come up in the CIP program?

[01:25:15] And my understanding is you did say it would come from different funds. So do we know what those funds are, or is it the CIP program? So at this point, we do not have any dollars programmed in the CIP for that effort. You know, we've tried to make estimates of that before, but, you know, until the board takes action, we won't develop a plan for that.

[01:25:38] And as you know, we just started that process. It will take a few months to do. And then there will be, I guess, a project established to be able to figure out what is affected, whether it's the school name or, you know, supplies inside. Those decisions would have to be figured out once the school board makes a decision if they're going to make a change.

[01:25:57] So, at this point, it has not been programmed in this budget. It would push back projects, possibly? It's really hard to say that it would. I mean, just from a size perspective, it's probably not going to be as large as a capital project normally is.

[01:26:14] I think it's going to be pretty minimal from a capital perspective. So, you know, it may, it will, there will be some funding required, but I'd find it harder to say right now it would delay any other projects. Thank you for clarifying. Thank you, Mr. Lewis.

[01:26:31] Thank you, Mrs. Griffiths. Are there any other questions? Yes, Dr. Rasheed. Thank you for the presentation, and thank you, Chair. Just had a question, and I think you explained it to me before. I just wanted to make sure for line six, what the star asterisks mean, and then all of a sudden it goes away in 2030.

[01:26:48] Maybe I'm just not reading it right. Yes, and thank you for asking. that question because that was yes that was on my list to explain and I forgot to do that so thank you for asking so we have the asterisk is just essentially saying that the first three years in FY27 FY28 and FY29 the the playground replacement program for three playgrounds per year is included in the cap so if you go to the cap you'll see where that's funded and then what we're saying is in 2030 and 2031 we're going to up that and include more funding for a more hardy replacement

[01:27:23] program for that which keeps us where we were in the CIP and didn't put any more extra funding in year one. Thank you Mr. Lewis. Yes Ms. Chernoff. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Mr. Lewis. Would you be able to give us the information on the FCA scores that were done? Would we be able to look at that at a more at a later time more in depth um i'm just thinking a little bit on a different lines of miss griffiths but sort of the same the ripple effect that you mentioned on

[01:27:56] slide 10 is really weighing heavily on me because i know we all have these really bright great ideas and i think i said this before but i'm really i want to be very mindful of where those buildings fit in terms of their scores and make some data-driven decisions in terms of what we're pushing back should we do new projects. So I would find that information helpful if we could have access to that. Absolutely. And on the 12th, November 12th work session, we've talked about school replacements so that we would share that information at that point, but certainly that information is readily available. Board members, any other questions before we recess for dinner?

[01:28:37] Yes. Vice Chair Straffi. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. My focus initially would be really understand and bridge my my learning curve when it comes to sustainment specifically the critical systems renewals I'm looking at page 10 and this is maybe for a future conversation but just looking at the schools that are prioritized earlier in the cycle and really what is the situation of those schools and how do we look at critical systems renewals obviously the the idea is that all of our schools have what they need everything is functioning and we don't have gaps there so then how are we making decisions

[01:29:14] And how should we be as board members be thinking about critical systems renewals in terms of comparing it against other initiatives? how The wrong word would be dire, but how important are the critical systems renewals?

[01:29:29] How much time would be left in each of those and just kind of any of the considerations that we need to have in mind before we even consider anything else outside of sustainment? Absolutely, we're happy to do that. We'll dig deeper in that in one of the work sessions and you know that we've labeled them as critical systems because that's what they are and you know if if we have you know major systems go down you know as you know you and i walked a couple of classrooms that were um not in good condition and they were they were too warm or too cool um and that's things we can we can address if we have a whole building like that then it's a major problem so we we are

[01:30:06] trying to look forward and forecast when a building an entire building is to the point where we could experience a catastrophic failure of a system and those are the ones we want to address and not lose track of them and when you add a hundred of those on top of each other the longer you put them off the more chance you have of multiple of those happening at the same time and so that's why we consider them critical but we'll we'll go through and give you more detail how we've decided that and I also want to thank you for those facilities tours they were super helpful not to digress too much but like seeing engineers high-five you in the hallways and just really looking at for example the Australian middle school parking situation, the parking is limited, but they've also got a

[01:30:44] little bit of an off-roading situation where staff parking on grass and stuff like that. I would find that amazing every day, but most people wouldn't. Yes, Dr. Deans. Technical line 10, where we talk about technical security improvements, that was not a really high number from us, it appears,

[01:31:14] But I think with our starting the alternative school, rather than do them across the board, the alternative school needs emphasis with security initially.

[01:31:32] Yes, ma'am. So line 10, the technical security improvements, is actually the maintenance of our existing systems. If you can imagine, the cameras and all the access equipment, the stuff that your badges work, all those types of things are computer systems that have a short life system of three to five years, sometimes seven years. And so this is a replacement cycle of all those cameras. And there are, there are thousands of cameras in our schools. And so this line item is how we replace those at the end of their life. And so that would be one of those things. It's, it's, it's, that's,

[01:32:08] that's why it's in the sustainment categories because it's a critical system as well for our security of our students. And the things you were talking about would be capital projects that we would do you know outside of that line item if that helps okay but I wanted to emphasize that the alternative school needs to have priority in getting security absolutely in getting more security yes ma'am thank you thank you dr. deans are there any more questions okay seeing no more questions we will

[01:32:40] now recess for dinner and reconvene at 6:30 board is now in recess time and we

[02:00:25] will continue with the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem. Our pledge leaders and National Anthem performers this evening are from the Arcola Elementary School Chorus. The Arcola Elementary School Chorus is an award-winning two-part vocal ensemble comprised of singers in fourth and fifth grades. We perform unison, two-part, and three-part vocal literature from various styles, genres, eras, and languages, all for treble voices. We have our annual winter and

[02:00:59] spring concerts at Arcola Elementary. We also travel to local community events, including performing at the National Christmas Tree, Zoo Lights at the National Zoo, Veterans Honor Splites, Washington Wizards Basketball Game, Stone Ridge Tree Lighting, and John Champ High School basketball and football games. The Arcola Elementary School Chorus is voluntary and open to all singers in the fourth and fifth grades with a love of singing and learning together to sing in a choral ensemble. There are 180 fourth and fifth grade singers in

[02:01:38] our 2024 Arcola Chorus, and we are excited to share some of our voices with you tonight. The chorus is under the direction of Mrs. Jennifer O'Reilly, who is in her 28th year of teaching children to love music here in Loudoun County.

[02:01:55] At this time, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem.

[02:02:07] Of you for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[02:03:11] We will now continue with item 8 from our student school board representative comment.

[02:04:40] Our student school board representative tonight is Madison Lowe, a rising senior at Freedom High School and current student council president. She's been involved with student council since her freshman year.

[02:04:56] Madison is a three-year member of the Virginia Student Council Association's advisory committee where she's worked with student leaders from around the state to plan the annual VSCA state convention. Madison also holds leadership positions in the Red Cross Club, American Cancer Society, and DECA, and served on the superintendent's student advisory committee for the 2023-2024 school year. Outside of school, Madison is cultivating her passion for dance. She has danced for 11 years, participating in regional and national competitions and performing with the

[02:05:33] Freedom Dance team. She loves to volunteer at Kravitz, her local orthodontics office. This year, Madison hopes to continue strengthening the unified nature and spirit at Freedom, and is honored to represent Freedom High School on the Loudoun County School Board.

[02:05:51] Ms. Lowe. Thank you, Madam Chair, and good evening, everyone. My name is Madison Lowe, and I'm the Student Council President and School Board Representative from Freedom High School. I'd like to begin by expressing gratitude to my Student Council Advisor, Ms. DeLeo, my Principal, Ms. Chaudry, and our faculty for being a constant source of guidance and support throughout my high school journey.

[02:06:15] I'm honored to be here tonight to speak about how our school embodies three key values: unity, engagement, and joy. With Freedom's diverse community of almost 1,900 students, we truly live by our school motto.

[02:06:31] Where there is unity, there is freedom. This is reflected in events like our Black History Month Assembly and our International Festival. Another tradition that fosters cultural pride is our annual Friendsgiving. This year, the Muslim Student Association and Black Student Association are collaborating, expecting over 200 students to gather and share ethnic foods.

[02:06:54] Additionally, through our Empowering Eagles campaign, led by the presidents of all our affinity groups, student voices were amplified as they were encouraged to speak out against discrimination. We planned and delivered advisory lessons, created a poster campaign, and trained many of our teachers to become trusted adults who students could speak with about discrimination and ethnic hatred.

[02:07:18] Our school community is also deeply committed to engagement, both inside and outside the classroom. I'm immensely proud of our girls soccer team, which went undefeated and won the state championship. The accomplishments of our fine arts department are equally as impressive, earning a status as a blue ribbon school for eight consecutive years.

[02:07:39] This level of excellence extends to student leadership. For example, the current president of the Virginia Student Council Association is a Freedom student. I find it inspiring to see a student with statewide influence for student advocacy and leadership development.

[02:07:56] What really sets Freedom apart, though, is the joy we take in celebrating together. This year marks Freedom's 20th anniversary, and that milestone has been worked into everything from staff T-shirts to our second annual homecoming parade, which featured 50 entries, including all of our elementary and middle schools.

[02:08:16] We also celebrate the achievements of our alumni, cheering on a former Freedom student who competed in the 2024 Olympics and another who was drafted into the Phillies in the 2024 MLB draft. And, of course, we take great pride in recognizing the accomplishments of our current students, celebrating our students quarterly through the Talent Awards.

[02:08:36] While I am so grateful and proud of my school, I know that we have room for growth as a county. When I entered Freedom nearly four years ago, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in the medical field, However, I quickly realized that Loudoun County doesn't offer many elective opportunities for me to explore medicine.

[02:08:55] Yes, I could have attended the Academies of Loudoun, but doing so would have meant giving up DECA, SCA, and the dance team at Freedom due to scheduling conflicts. These activities are such a huge part of my high school experience, shaping my leadership and teamwork skills, and I wasn't willing to give them up. That's why my wish for Loudoun County is to have more exploratory classes, such as anatomy and physiology, genetics, or microbiology, which could be offered at base high schools.

[02:09:20] This would give students like me the chance to explore career interests much like students in business or technology can. I've loved being a Loudoun County student, but my four years at Freedom have been truly special. Freedom is more than just a school. It's where I've grown as a leader, found my voice, and built lasting connections with people who've inspired me to think beyond myself.

[02:09:41] thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share the amazing things happening at freedom and i look forward for what's next for our school and county thank you thank you miss lo for being here and for your comments we will now move on to item nine the superintendent's report presented by dr aaron spence dr spence thank you madam chair and members of the school board it is my pleasure to share some good news from around our school division this evening starting with

[02:10:19] our 1LCPS celebration day. This was our first ever 1LCPS celebration day and it was a blast. My team and I, we had the pleasure of visiting nearly 70 of our schools and at each of these schools we witnessed the creativity, dedication, and pride of our LCPS students and staff. Many of our schools shared great pictures, some of which you can see here and which we re-shared through our LCPS social media channels and our newsletters. So why this day? We set this day aside to thank and congratulate our students and our staff for all they do to make LCPS shine. As we have shared and have been sharing, there is so much to celebrate from our outstanding assessment scores to our

[02:10:59] schools to watch recognitions to the tremendous day-to-day achievements of our students and staff like you just heard. LCPS is truly a leader in Northern Virginia and across these United States and these accomplishments could not be achieved without the hard work of our dedicated staff and amazing students and families. So I want to personally thank everyone for all that they do for LCPS. Next, over 250 community and business partners plus LCPS team members participated in the Workforce Summit on Friday, October the 18th at the National Conference Center. The goal of this amazing event was to discuss the future of work and how to best partner in support of our

[02:11:38] LCPS students. Some of the questions that guided our conversations were what does LCPS need from employers to support workforce development? What do employers want from LCPS to support workforce development? And how can employers commit and what barriers can LCPS break down as we think about supporting our students? So there were numerous breakout discussions that were available for attendees to participate in. And these conversations centered around workforce opportunities with a focus on key sectors, including health innovation and technology, cybersecurity, aerospace, agriculture, and small business amongst several. Discussions and

[02:12:18] partnerships such as those on display at this conference will help ensure that LCPS prepares students for the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow, and we're grateful for the leadership of our team that helped to put that together and for all of those who attended, including some of our board members. Last week, we celebrated National School Lunch Week. The goal of this week was to promote the importance of our school meal program and providing nutritious and well-balanced meals to students. Cafeteria managers used this week to raise awareness about the benefits of eating a nutritious school lunch. The theme for this week this year was School Lunch Pirates, Find Your Treasure. For a little fun, cafeteria staff placed a printed image of a pirate ship

[02:12:57] under one randomly selected tray and the student who found this image under their tray received a prize. LCPS middle school students participated in the Amazon Web Services Girls Tech Day. More than 200 of our middle school students attended this day at Amazon's second headquarters in Arlington on Saturday, October the 5th. This incredible event, which was organized by our Computer Science Office with support from AWS and the Loudon Education Foundation, was designed to inspire our girls and young women to explore careers in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math, fields where women are still underrepresented. Students participated in hands-on

[02:13:37] workshops, including forensic science and programming robotic cars, and heard from inspiring women leaders from companies like NASA and AWS this experience gave our students a glimpse of what's possible when they pursue their passion for learning and innovation and we're proud of their engagement and eager to continue providing opportunities like this that empower all of our students to think big and dream even bigger and we want to thank our partners at AWS and the Loudon Education Foundation for helping to make this event a success because together we're shaping the future one student at a time we are pleased to note that JL Simpson Middle School has made history as the first public school in northern virginia to earn the prestigious heart safe school

[02:14:17] recognition from the children's hospital of richmond's project adam initiative project adam which is a nationwide initiative assists schools and communities in developing emergency response plans in the event of a sudden cardiac arrest the school's recognition is a testament to the dedication of school nurse renee pettit whose efforts have led to this recognition through her leadership simpson's medical emergency response team has been thoroughly trained and drilled to respond swiftly and effectively to cardiac emergencies, reinforcing the school's commitment to student and staff safety. Next, we're pleased to note that Leesburg Elementary School received

[02:14:53] a $5,000 donation from Burlington in partnership with their adoptaclassroom.org. The donation was made in celebration of the grand opening of Burlington's new Leesburg store. These funds will help teachers purchase classroom supplies to support student learning and several members of the Leesburg Elementary Administration, including Principal Sean Lacey and Assistant Principal Dr. Elena Cloaks, along with students and PTA representatives, were on hand for the presentation of this check during a ribbon-cutting ceremony led by Burlington staff on Friday, October the 18th.

[02:15:25] Since 2017, Burlington has partnered with adoptaclassroom.org to provide over $1.3 million to schools for supporting our student learners. As part of this approach, Burlington adopts and funds local classrooms each time they open a new store in a community. The students and staff of J. Michael Lunsford Middle School hosted a food and toiletries drive to support individuals impacted by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.

[02:15:52] The donation drive was spearheaded by Spectrum Gifted Resource Teacher Alana Amani, who has connections in Asheville. Ms. Amani shared that Principal Amanda Hudson challenged the students to support the donation drive, and by the next morning, the lobby was full of donations, with more arriving throughout the day.

[02:16:10] There were enough donations to fill a truck donated by Rockwater Farm Landscaping, who then drove those supplies to North Carolina. Principal Hudson said that the efforts of students and staff in hosting this drive reflects the amazing community at Lunsford Middle. We're also pleased to note that Jennifer Evans, LCPS Director of Student Mental Health Services, was recognized by Loudon Serenity House at their annual brunch at Belmont Country Club on Saturday, October the 5th.

[02:16:36] The Appreciation Award served as a thank you for her vision, dedication, and service to reach and assist young people in our community and described her hard work and her devotion to helping others as inspirational. In attendance at the event were sponsors, providers, community partners, individuals in recovery, and family members.

[02:16:55] And it's important to note that LCPS has an established partnership with Serenity House and share their resources with students and families. The Recovery Community Center located in Leesburg welcomes anyone in our community seeking help with substance use disorder and access to recovery services.

[02:17:13] And then finally, I had the pleasure of joining superintendents from our neighboring school divisions as well as students and community leaders at the recent 8th annual climate crisis forum which was hosted by the faith alliance for climate solutions in falls church i had the opportunity to talk about the great sustainability efforts lcps has initiated and supported and our plans for future initiatives a little bit of what you heard mr lewis talking about this evening lcps has a long history of energy management energy efficiency and sustainability initiatives and in addition to these efforts, LCPS students and educators are working together across the

[02:17:49] division to engage in learning and action around sustainability and environmental literacy, and we were pleased to welcome students from Woodgrove High School to this event with us as well. I look forward to continuing this discussion with regional and state colleagues and here across our school division. And Madam Chair, that concludes my report.

[02:18:09] Thank you, Dr. Spence. And that brings us to item 10, public comment, procedures for public comment. Thank you for engaging with the school board through the public comment process. The school board welcomes comments from Loudoun County residents and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system.

[02:18:33] Speakers must list limit comments to the time allotted. Based on the number of speakers in the agenda this evening, all speakers have been allotted one minute each for public comment. please be advised that speakers who miss their time slots will not be called at a later time all audience members shall maintain civility decorum and respect for the functioning the dignity of the school board at all times please remain seated unless arriving departing speaking at the podium or during a break violations of civility decorum and respect include shouting

[02:19:06] heckling jeering applause or other noise which disrupts or dislays the meeting obstructing speakers from being able to see the school board and vice versa, interrupting speakers, attempting to speak when not called to do so by the chair, and approaching a speaker or otherwise attempting to intimidate, disparage, or distract a speaker, staff member, or other meeting attendees. Speakers should refrain from vulgarity, obscenities, defamation, profanity, or other like breaches of respect, nor may speakers target, criticize, or attack individual students and or individual

[02:19:44] employees during public comment. As a reminder, school board policy 2520 states, speakers may not target, criticize, or attack individual students during public comment. Speakers should communicate those concerns to their school principal or an appropriate school official. The school board requests that comments on an individual student or employee-related matter not be shared at public meetings where the disclosure could violate applicable confidentiality requirements.

[02:20:16] Speakers should face the dais and direct their comments to the school board. Per LCPS Policy 2520, members of the school board will not answer questions or respond directly to the public during the public comment period. Violations of decorum or civility by any meeting attendee may result in the chair directing staff to remove the attendee from the remainder of the meeting.

[02:20:39] Repeated or persistent violations of decorum or civility by the audience may result in on the decision of the chair public comment being tabled until a later point in the meeting's agenda limiting the number of attendees in the meeting room during public comment for safety reasons or the public comment period ending for the evening copies of materials for board members should be given to the public information officer in the media box at the back of the board room before the start of the meeting please provide 12 copies of the materials under no circumstances

[02:21:14] may a speaker approach the dais. The public is reminded that access to school board meetings is available through LCPS-TV on Comcast Channel 18 and Verizon Fios Channel 43. The live stream of the meeting may be also viewed on the website. Before we start with public comment, I do want to take a moment to clarify a few things in light of public comment that was held at the last school board meeting. As is shared during the opening remarks prior to public comment, speakers may not

[02:21:49] criticize target or attack individual students during public comment again that prohibition is from school board policy 2520 participation by the public the policy prohibits such conduct because it causes unnecessary delay or disruption to a meeting additionally as is shared during the opening remarks prior to public comment the school board requests that comments on an individual student or employee related matter not be shared at public meetings where the disclosure could

[02:22:27] violate applicable confidentiality requirements. As I explained during our last meeting, speakers can personally identify a student without stating a student's name. That is personally identifiable information is any information that a reasonable person can link together to pinpoint an individual student and where that individual student is known to others in their school and surrounding community based on the context that is shared. The school board welcomes you to share your concerns

[02:23:04] but asks that to the extent you have prepared remarks that target, criticize, or attack any individual students, you generalize such remarks to ensure compliance with board policy. For example, Comments that target, criticize, or attack a student or a student from a specific name schooled or a student with any characteristics where the information would personally identify that student to others in the school or broader LCPS community would violate school board policy.

[02:23:43] However, comments that discuss general concerns with students or at schools and do not target, criticize, or attack an individual identifiable student are permissible.

[02:24:01] While the media and our law enforcement are able to share information that relates to a personally identifiable student at their discretion, based on relevant student privacy laws and relevant school board policy, targeting, criticizing, or attacking individual students is prohibited in this forum. Under school board policy I as the school board chair am charged with the responsibility to maintain order during school board meetings. Accordingly when reasonable I will

[02:24:36] warn of breaches of decorum, civility, and respect prior to discontinuing individual speaking privileges or taking other actions to preserve the civility, decorum, and orderly conduct of the meeting. Such action includes a calling of recess in order to maintain or restore order. To the extent necessary, I will warn of breaches of decorum, civility, and respect from attendees prior to taking other actions to preserve the orally conduct of the meeting. If speakers fail

[02:25:13] to comply with board policy regarding public participation, you will receive a warning and a request to redirect or generalize your comments. Should you fail to redirect or generalize your comments after that warning, you may be asked to yield the microphone, at which time you should take your seat, and then I will call the next speaker. Since this may be new information for some, I'd like to take about three minutes to afford those who would like to do so an opportunity

[02:25:47] to review their comments and make sure they are compliant with policy 2520. Mr. Smith, would you mind, are we able to play some instrumental music for the three minutes during

[02:26:02] this time? Yes. Okay. The three minutes start now.

[02:28:53] We have about 20 more seconds. Okay. Thank you.

[02:29:19] Okay. I think we will start as normal with our virtual public comment speakers. The first one is Tamara McFerrin, followed by Paula Cook.

[02:29:43] Can someone hear me? Good evening. My name is Tamara McFerrin, and I urge you to fully fund the request to increase the number of high school athletic trainers. Most of us think of athletic trainers as focused on injury prevention, taping ankles, and concussion protocols. What we don't think about is that athletic trainers also save lives.

[02:30:03] I didn't until the Woodgrove athletic trainers saved my daughter's life at a cross-country meet last month. When she collapsed at the finish line, they jumped into action, quickly identifying her core temperature is over 105 degrees and she was dangerously close to heat stroke. They had an ice bath already filled and ready. We knew an ice bath could put her into anaphylaxis due to another medical condition, but they were ready for that too with four EpiPens on hand. They treated and stabilized her from not just one but two life-threatening emergencies. My daughter had a happy ending with no long-term damage, 100% thanks to the expertise of the Woodgrove athletic

[02:30:39] trainers. I implore you to ensure there are sufficient trainers at every high school. Our family knows firsthand how important that is. Thank you. Thank you. Paula Cook followed by Elizabeth Ortega. I'm Ms. Paula Cook and I'm a parent of two Freedom High School multiple sport athletes. I wanted to speak to the board in support of adding a second certified athletic trainer at each high school. Over the years, we have seen an increase in the number of sports offered and an increase in the level of competitiveness. I think it's fair that we also increase athlete support services. This fall, each school had up to eight sports and one trainer providing care for

[02:31:18] games, practices, lift sessions, while also caring for athletes in recovery. This is daily from dismissal until late at night. Life-threatening injuries can also occur and need to be treated within three minutes, as we just discussed, to increase the survival rate. The scary reality is the trainer might not be at the event because they're across campus at another sporting event.

[02:31:40] From personal experience, we are impressed with the level of care trainers provide for concussion management. The multiple-step recovery program makes certain students are ready physically and academically before returning to play. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you.

[02:31:56] Elizabeth Ortega, followed by Brenda Bankston. I'd have an attendee by that name. Thank you. Brenda Bankston, followed by Omer Butt. Forcing public comment standards.

[02:32:16] Four rumor mill speakers didn't heed clear warnings about revealing unverified, identifying information about LCPS students. Attempts to inflame and defame were curtailed. A Loudon Times article refuted the irresponsible disinformation. Thanks. Some reporters only come for the controversial. Wade Byard notes, someone would say something bat bleep crazy during public comment, so a fake piece on fake outrage could be constructed.

[02:32:53] Most parents instill hopes and dreams and are cautious to not project their own fears. But in recent years, all we hear is fear and loathing of other people's children. Reject Project 2025.

[02:33:12] Thank you, Omer Butte. I'd see an attendee by that name. Thank you. And we will move to our in-person speakers, Augie Rosas.

[02:33:34] Madam Chairman, board members, thanks for the opportunity to actually to support the athletic training trainers that we have today. Basically, long story short, these individuals are understaffed.

[02:33:51] I mean, it is incredible. Whenever I work with these folks at the events, the amount of issues that they have to deal with is amazing. In the EMS world, we have a thing called mass casualty events. when basically your incidents or your patients outman the amount of patients that you have. If I don't have enough resources, it's a mass casualty event.

[02:34:09] I don't want to be the individual that basically tells the mother or father that their child didn't get care because they did not have enough people at that event. Cardiac arrests are only one particular issue. Other issues that are definitely predominant in the world of athletics or whatever, it's not only drop in shock, but anaphylactic shock.

[02:34:26] You have minutes, minutes to be able to sit there and attend to that individual. Diabetic emergencies, we see these a lot. Pulmonary medical issues, asthma. Asthma is very big in the athletic industry as well. They need your support.

[02:34:42] Thank you. Paul Peterson, followed by James Montgomery. Good evening. My name is Paul Peterson, and I've been an LCPS athletic trainer for 25 years.

[02:35:00] I'm here tonight to continue our theme, When the Bell Rings, Competent Care Counts. I'm going to specifically talk about the potentially catastrophic injury of exertional heatstroke, which is a life-threatening illness characterized by high body core temperature above 104 and with central nervous system dysfunction.

[02:35:18] Athletic trainers are trained to immediately recognize and treat exertional heatstroke by initiating core temperature measurement, and if over 104, begin ice water immersion on site. If this protocol is followed within the first 30 minutes of collapse, the survival rate is 100%.

[02:35:33] However, if there's a delay in care, the survival rate drops at 20%. Since 2017, we've had six confirmed cases of exertional heat stroke and all were successfully treated by our athletic trainers and they all made full recoveries. Fortunately, all these cases occurred when there were multiple athletic trainers on site.

[02:35:51] But what would the outcome have been if there was a delay in care because the athletic trainer was dealing with another injury at the same time or an off-season practice or simply out and couldn't find it? Thank you. James Montgomery followed by Scott Manil. Hi, my name is James Montgomery. I go to Harmony Middle School and I'm in eighth grade. I've been playing volleyball for a year and a half. I love it because

[02:36:26] of its fast pace, teamwork, and gameplay. I like to request boys volleyball in public schools in Loudoun County. My parents looked for opportunities such as NVVA in Sterling, but it only has beginner options for boys. We also looked at community centers in Lovetsville, Brunswick, but they only have adult volleyball. I wanted to play more competitively, but all the options were much farther away. The closest club teams we could find are in Manassas and Frederick. The club teams are also very expensive. Fairfax County has started high school boys volleyball this year.

[02:37:00] I would like Loudon to do the same so I have a chance to get better and play for my school. Volleyball is the fastest growing high school sport in the country and one of the safest. The sheet I provided you gives you more information. The startup cost would be minimal because the schools already have all the equipment and space. I love volleyball and hope that other boys and I have the chance to play a role in high school.

[02:37:19] Thank you for taking this into consideration. Thank you. Scott Maneo, followed by Madeline Platt.

[02:37:36] Madeline Platt, followed by Elizabeth Fugel. Elizabeth Fugel, followed by Carrie Adams.

[02:37:57] Carrie Adams, followed by Liz Crotty. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the school board.

[02:38:15] I'm Carrie Adams. I've emailed each of you in the past few weeks regarding my son, Chase, who is a full-time wheelchair user, and our difficulties with the inaccessibility of his elementary playground. My son's playground is 100%, 100% inaccessible for him, causing him to be left behind from his classmates during recess. As a medical professional, I can quote numerous studies that clearly show the importance of play in child development, not to mention the lifelong issues caused by exclusion at such a young age. My son, along with every child in LCPS, deserves to have a playground that is accessible to him. This is not a want, this is an absolute need.

[02:38:49] I've been working with SEAC and the facilities team where I've learned that the current CAP funding plan is replacing these playgrounds at three a year. This will take 20 years to replace all the playgrounds. It's just unacceptable. Additionally, replacement plans need to prioritize the schools with no need and population versus replacing by age.

[02:39:06] There are currently 16 schools with kids with no accessibility issues, and these playgrounds need to be replaced now, not 20 years from now. Thank you. Thank you. Liz Crotty, followed by Kate O'Hara. Good evening.

[02:39:27] I'm Liz Crotty. I am the chair of SEAC. I would like to bring a couple things to your attention. We have 44 elementary playgrounds that need to be replaced by inclusive playgrounds and three playgrounds a year is too slow. We are asking that you accelerate the pace to ten playgrounds a year to give all students access to a playground. Please don't prioritize high school lab preschool playgrounds over elementary school inclusive playgrounds. Special education preschools are not included in the capital budget. Also, I would ask that you look into whether fencing is being installed, the fencing that is being installed is meeting the

[02:40:03] goal of providing a safe contained space for students with disabilities. Because they decided to fence a much larger area, we are now hearing that students in program classes will still not have access to these playgrounds, which I know was the entire intent behind fencing these playgrounds to begin with. So if you could please check in with principals, make sure that this is actually going to occur. Thank you very much and we appreciate your support. Thank you. Kate O'Hara

[02:40:32] followed by Isabella Hortega. Isabella Hortega followed by Roos McKinney. Roos McKinney followed by Braden Platt. Braden Platt followed by Britt Kester. Britt Kester followed by Tracy Nicola.

[02:41:00] Tracy Nicola followed by Stephanie Markey. Stephanie Markey followed by Tanya Roach. Tonya Roach, followed by Lee P. Lee P, followed by Daryl Markham. Daryl Markham, followed by Laura Colossi.

[02:41:40] Are you Laura Colossi? One up. That's okay. Come on up. Okay, good evening. My name is Laura Colossi, and I'm the mother of a kindergartner with autism. I urge you all to prioritize making our playgrounds accessible to all children in LCPS.

[02:41:57] Recess is a vital day for our students. It's a time for social interaction, regulation, and simply a break from the school day. Currently, my son's special ed class is restricted to a small courtyard inside the school that resembles more of a jail than a playground area. They don't have access to any commercial grade playground structures and are limited to toys and plastic play equipment that's been donated by families.

[02:42:18] Our school is in the process of being fenced in, and I'm afraid that it isn't doing anything to make things more accessible for our students with disabilities. I was just told recently by the principal of my son's school that even after the fencing is completed, the special ed students still won't be able to access the playground because the fenced-in area is simply too large for them to keep an eye on all the students I thought the whole point of the fencing was to make sure our special ed students were included our kids simply deserve better also if you could fund a transition center for our kids that'd be great thank you so much hey Olivia Barnhart followed by Susannah Lee Susannah Lee followed by

[02:42:58] Lisa H Lisa H followed by Gabrielle Gabriel H Gabriel H followed by Beth Hughes Beth Hughes followed by Megan Clegg Megan Clegg followed by Kelly Welsh. Kelly Welsh followed by Amy Miller. Amy Miller followed by Corey Brunet. Corey Brunet

[02:43:36] followed by Carrie Michonne. Good evening my name is Corey Brunet and I'm an English learner teacher at Broad Run High School. Tonight I'd like to bring your attention to the LCPS website with regard to user friendliness in the name of transparency. I know this was discussed last year during budget deliberations and I think LCPS even hired someone who would help with the website.

[02:43:59] A couple of days ago, I went to the website trying to find any information about the new alternative school. I spent quite a bit of time and got nowhere. I ended up reaching out to one of you who had the information I needed. Where is the transparency?

[02:44:17] The school district in the richest county in the country should be able to have a website that is resourceful, user-friendly, and up-to-date. Our schools have much better and more user-friendly websites than LCPS does. LCPS will never outperform its educators.

[02:44:37] Thank you. Carrie Michon, followed by Brandon Michon. Brandon Michon, followed by John Michon. John Michon, followed by Michael Bullock. Michael Bullock, followed by Tiffany Polifko.

[02:44:54] Tiffany Polifko, followed by Alicia Brand. Alicia Brand, followed by Meg R. Meg R, followed by Terry Damansky. Terry Damansky, followed by Katie Wheeler.

[02:45:15] Katie Wheeler, followed by Carly Copeland. Carly Copeland, followed by Lori Galloway. Laurie Galloway, followed by Stephen Meyer. Stephen Meyer, followed by Natasya Grover.

[02:45:35] Good evening. So I can't talk in less than two minutes. What I wanted to say was I appreciate your support for the new Transition Center. It's great. I taught pre-algebra to kids with disabilities. I wanted to tell you about how important that would be for the types of students that I taught. So I'll come back and do that. I want you to know that CTE programs are really important for my kids. I'm glad the Transition Center is including that. We need to make the

[02:46:13] Transition Center a model for the nation, and I think we owe that to ourselves and our students. Thank you. Thank you. Natasha Grover, followed by Meredith Ray. Meredith Ray, followed by Andrew minutes good evening i want to thank the board for unanimously passing the safe storage resolution it's truly absurd that some individuals at the last meeting attempted to deflect a discussion

[02:46:52] about the safe storage resolution by shifting focus to unverified claims we should not we should be prioritizing rational discourse not spreading rumors or disrespecting the chair's repeated requests and showing unhinged behavior requiring the chair to shut down debate frankly that behavior was ignorant and irresponsible thank you andrew metz followed by shane hamblin shane hamblin

[02:47:23] followed by tate michon tate michon followed by kelly michon thank you all for coming out today and providing your public comment board members at this time we will take a short recess

[02:47:39] and we will reconvene at 7 25 the board is now in recess i think my board comments is i went

[02:58:46] jeeping that's my board comment where'd he go all right the board is back from recess and we will continue with item 11 and our our information items 11.01 department of business and financial services fy 25 first quarter financial review and covid funds update presented by sharon willoughby

[02:59:25] chief financial officer thank you i am here to present the first quarter financial review along with our final COVID funds update.

[02:59:43] The review that I will present is comprised of actual financial activity that has occurred from July 1st through September 30th with projections made for the remainder of the fiscal year. The full report is available in board docs. I will present the highlights this evening, starting with our school operating fund.

[03:00:03] In this fund, we are seeing the impacts of actual enrollment being about 1,700 students under the budgeted projection. This is creating a revenue shortfall of about $5.9 million in state funding from enrollment-driven accounts. However, we are able to manage a shortfall with projected expenditure savings.

[03:00:21] On the expense side of the fund, personnel and operating costs are under budget with personnel projected to be under budget by about 2%, which is in line with our historical trends and a small amount falling out of our operating accounts. After deducting $12 million to be assumed as a carryover into the FY26 budget, We are forecasting a fund balance of $21.1 million.

[03:00:45] As we move through the fiscal year, we will continue to refine our projections. Typically, around the third quarter financial projection, we begin discussions with the school board about possible uses of the operating fund balance. This year, though, we anticipate transferring up to $21 million to help our health self-insurance fund.

[03:01:06] I'll provide more detail on the health fund later in this presentation, But we'll point out that in the county's appropriating resolution, we are authorized to transfer operating funds in an amount up to 10% of claims expense should our reserve fall below 10% in the health self-insurance fund.

[03:01:24] We are projecting our health fund balance to below 10%, and coincidentally, the amount to meet the 10% reserve is $21 million, which is the amount available in the current projected fund balance. This means, should these numbers not change much as we move through the fiscal year, that we would have no available funds to address new needs at year-end and that we would not return any funds to the county.

[03:01:49] As I stated earlier, we are closely monitoring all financial activity. The school nutrition fund is also being impacted by lower enrollment numbers as we are seeing a modest increase in cafeteria sales that are primarily driven, though, by increased meal prices and participation projections.

[03:02:11] Ongoing analysis is ongoing, I mean, is occurring, excuse me, that will shape a recommendation regarding next year's meal prices as part of the FY26 budget. While the projected fund balance is slightly above the three-month expenditure reserve amount, we need to ensure that the revenues are sufficient to cover expenses and continue to review ways to increase revenues while also decreasing costs.

[03:02:35] Three of our self-insurance funds, the Workers' Comp Fund, the Short-Term Disability Fund, and the Virginia Local Disability Program Fund, are relatively stable with costs in line with budget expectations. All three funds are projected to maintain its two-month minimum reserve balance.

[03:02:51] However, our health self-insurance fund is struggling. Revenues are projected to barely be on target, but are heavily reliant on maintaining rebate trends, filling vacancies, and plan selections made during this open enrollment period.

[03:03:08] As we move through the fiscal year, we will have better data to refine our projections, and especially after open enrollment, we will be able to see how plan selections impact our financial projections. Claims expense continues to outpace revenue, and in particular, the pharmacy claims are having a significant impact with a 15% year-over-year increase that continues to climb.

[03:03:32] We have prioritized issuing a pharmacy RFP to achieve more effective cost controls for employees and for LCPS as the insurer. As mentioned during the operating fund projection, we forecast the ending reserve to be 2% or $5.3 million.

[03:03:49] This is below our policy of 17% reserve representing two months of claims expense and is below the county's 10% reserve threshold allowing a transfer from the operating fund. To achieve the minimum 10% reserve, this fund would need a reserve of $26 million, thus the anticipated $21 million transfer from the operating fund.

[03:04:13] Even with this transfer, we expect continued premium increases to keep up with the claims cost. The activity in the health fund is actively monitored. We work with a consultant, and we will continue to develop and closely watch as we determine what the recommended premium increase will be for the FY26 budget.

[03:04:33] Next, I am happy to share that we have added in our capital funds to our quarterly financial review, so this is brand new. I must start with expressing my appreciation for the collaboration between the capital projects team and the financial analytics team to incorporate this financial activity into the quarterly review.

[03:04:58] The first fund is the Capital Asset Preservation Program, or CAP fund, that holds funding from the county to address major maintenance and system replacement projects. Projects must have a minimum value of $10,000, and the replay systems must have an expected lifespan of 10 years or more.

[03:05:15] The CAP funding, though, is flexible to allow staff the ability to manage emergencies and other high-priority needs. You will see in the report that the costs are categorized by work type, such as HVAC, plumbing, or electrical, and that all funds are projected to be fully spent.

[03:05:32] The other capital fund is the Capital Improvement Program, or CIP Fund, that accounts for the expenses related to construction and renovation of facilities, land acquisition, bus purchases, and certain renovations. Embedded in this fund are the Capital Facility Renewal and Alteration Program projects.

[03:05:52] This fund is also funded by the county. The expenses in the report are by capital spending categories, such as construction contract and land acquisition. As this is the first reporting of this fund, we are exploring the possibility of expanding the report to show the individual CIP projects.

[03:06:09] This first quarter projection presents a cost overrun of $42.7, which should come as no surprise as this was the basis for the request brought to the school board for the county year-end funds request, and that was also approved earlier this evening on the consent agenda.

[03:06:27] Finally, I am very excited to share our final COVID funds update. All 25 of our COVID funds have been fully spent, totaling $86 million. Looking back at the 25 awards and how we utilize the $86 million, it really tells the story of the pandemic.

[03:06:49] Some examples of spending at the beginning were awards were targeted to address student and staff safety. So we purchased items like PPE, hand sanitizer, cleaning supplies, air filters, and renovated HVAC systems. Then there were investments in student Chromebooks and Wi-Fi hotspots, along with one-time bonuses to address critical staffing shortages.

[03:07:11] Then we have moved into the phase of addressing learning loss as a result of the pandemic and invested student support such as instructional materials, investing in summer school, and tutoring services. From the very beginning, we were strategic to align usage of these one-time funds with non-recurring uses to avoid any operating budget impact.

[03:07:30] And with that, that concludes my first quarter financial review, and I am happy to take any questions. Thank you, Ms. Willoughby. Board members, do you have any questions? Seeing none, thank you so much. We will move on to information item 11.02, Finance and Operations Committee, revision of Policy 4030, non-locally funded programs, presented by Arvin Estreffi, Chair of Finance and Operations Committee.

[03:08:01] Thank you, Madam Chair. board members we're discussing updates to policy 4030 non locally funded programs this was adopted in originally in 2016 the updates to this policy from my perspective really just clarify the differences between grants donations and monetary proffers which are all the non locally funded programs they also provide some guidance as to the parameters around some of these non-locally funded programs and then the regulation tied to policy 4030 provides clarity

[03:08:41] around some of the procedures and responsibilities for accepting or applying or reporting on these grants or donations or monetary proffers. We also received a presentation around grants which was in committee which was especially useful and I think some of the conclusions in that you can just basically see that the the vast majority of grants come from our federal grants or the title grants and then anything at the school level a good chunk of the

[03:09:17] grants coming at the school level of 34% to be precise are coming from LEF and then the others are local local grants so yeah that's just information about this information item Thank You Vice Chair Struffy board members do you have any questions seeing no questions board members can I get a thumbs up to place this on consent for the November 12th school board meeting we have a unanimous that will go on consent for the next November 12th school board

[03:09:56] meeting we'll move on to information item 11.03 human resources and talent development employee incentives i can um do you want do you want me to presented by mrs griffiths who's the chair or do you want me to i i can do well we'll just have miss boland speak to it thank you so much miss boland i'm sorry i didn't even see you walk up there i'm sorry that's okay you snuck up there

[03:10:36] I snuck. I was pretty quick. Okay. Thank you so much. Good evening. I'm excited to share with you a series of initiatives that reflect our ongoing commitment to supporting and recognizing the incredible work of our dedicated staff. HRTD is committed to recruiting, developing, supporting, and retaining top diverse talent while ensuring competitive salaries and benefits for our large workforce. This evening, I will be focusing on several planned incentives for some of our employees. As the board may recall, I briefly mentioned our work to support retention

[03:11:13] in May during our discussion on year-end fund balance uses. While our long-term goal is to provide incentives for all staff with the funds allotted in the fiscal year 25 budget, we will begin by focusing on three specific incentive programs. As we continue to explore strategies for recruiting and retaining top talent, I'm pleased to share with the school board that we are implementing three new employee incentives. These include a retention bonus specifically

[03:11:48] targeted at select special education and Title I school staff, an expansion of our newly implemented sign-on bonus for new teachers, now also extending to teachers who have accepted lateral transfers into special education positions or teaching roles at Title I schools, and an adjustment to step placement policy for hiring new licensed employees, making us more competitive in attracting experienced educators.

[03:12:24] To strengthen our commitment to retaining high-quality staff in our most critical roles, we are introducing a retention bonus program aimed specifically at select special education and Title I school staff. This program is designed to reward those who continue their service in these essential positions, ensuring stability and support for our students during the upcoming school year.

[03:12:50] Data was pooled and utilized to guide the development of this initiative and highlighted the need for targeted retention efforts. For the 22-23 school year, attrition rates for licensed employees at Title I schools were significantly higher than at non-Title I schools, with a greater number of lateral transfers at these schools. In special education, while attrition rates for licensed special education positions were similar to those in non-special education roles.

[03:13:19] Filling these positions has consistently been a challenge. Additionally, non-exempt special education staff experienced notably higher attrition rates compared to their competitors in other areas. In response to these challenges, we are introducing a retention bonus incentive that will follow the same structure as the one-time top-step payment. More details on eligible positions will be shared later in this presentation.

[03:13:50] We are offering, like I said, a one-time retention bonus of $2,000 for returning employees in specific full-time positions within special education. This includes special education teachers, licensed staff, such as occupational and physical therapists, speech and music therapists, interpreters for the deaf and hard of hearing, and audiologists, as well as special education teacher assistants, behavior assistants, and staff.

[03:14:17] and job coaches. To qualify for the retention bonus, employees must have held an eligible position as of June 30, 2024, and must remain in that position on October 1, 2024. It's important to note that employees hired on an end-of-year contract for the 23-24 school year will not be eligible for this bonus. However, if they were rehired for the 24-25 school year, they would qualify for the sign-on bonus. As a reminder, the retention bonus structure will mirror the process

[03:14:56] utilized for the one-time top-step payment. In addition to the retention bonus offered to eligible employees in special education, we are also providing a one-time retention bonus of $2,000 for returning employees at Title I schools in specific full-time positions. This includes teachers across all subjects and grades, as well as other licensed staff such as school counselors, student activities and engagement coordinators, instructional facilitators, test coordinators,

[03:15:31] librarians, and assistant athletic directors. Teacher assistants and library assistants will also be eligible for this bonus. To qualify for this retention bonus, employees must have held an eligible position at a Title I school as of June 30, 2024, and must remain in that position on October 1, 2024. Similar to the previous retention bonus, employees hired on the end-of-year contract would not be eligible. However, if they were rehired for the new school year, they would

[03:16:06] qualify for the sign-on bonus. Additionally, employees at schools that were not Title I in 2023-24 school year but became Title I or become Title I in the 24-25 school year will also be ineligible. The retention bonus is intended for staff who served in an eligible position at an eligible school during the previous school year and remained in that position for the following year. So anyone eligible this year would then receive the retention bonus the following school year as long as they remained in that position. Each employee can receive only one

[03:16:45] bonus, meaning that an eligible special education employee at a Title I school would receive one $2,000 retention bonus. Okay, so the retention bonus structure will mirror the process utilized for the one-time top step payment. Eligible employees will be notified one or before October 29th and will receive the bonus as a one-time payout in November. Now that we've covered the

[03:17:22] retention bonus, let's turn our attention to another key initiative, the expansion of our sign-on bonus program. To recognize and support current licensed employees who accept lateral transfers into special education teacher positions or positions at Title I schools, we are proposing a $2,000 bonus for these employees.

[03:17:46] This employee group falls into that gap between those receiving the sign-on bonuses and those eligible for the retention bonus. By offering this incentive, we acknowledge their choice to transition into hard-to-fill special education roles or positions within Title I schools.

[03:18:04] This expansion aligns with our new sign-on bonus program implemented for the first time this school year, and we plan to propose it as a formal expansion of the program for fiscal year 26. To be eligible, employees must have been in a non-special education teacher position or a teacher position at a non-Title I school during the 23-24 school year before accepting the lateral position.

[03:18:30] Having addressed the sign-on bonus expansion, we now turn our focus to our final incentive, The adjustment to our step placement policy for hiring new licensed employees. To enhance our ability to recruit high-quality experienced licensed employees, we are proposing a change to the maximum experience credit for new hires.

[03:18:57] Currently, our policy limits initial step placement to a maximum of 15 years of full-time eligible licensed experience. This proposal will remove that cap. The step placement adjustment will be applied to current employees eligible for adjustment and will mirror the reclassification review process.

[03:19:18] The teacher scale currently extends up to step 30, and we will use employment verification forms submitted at time of hire to determine appropriate step placement adjustments in accordance with this updated practice. It's important to clarify that while years of experience contribute to step placement, other factors such as evaluation ratings and full-time versus part-time experience may also play a role. Eligible employees will be notified of their step placement adjustment on or before

[03:19:54] October 29th, just like the other incentives, and the adjustment will take effect on November 3rd, and eligible employees will see the changes reflected in their November 29th paycheck. While these initiatives focus on specific positions, they represent just a starting point based on the resources currently available.

[03:20:17] However, we want to express our sincere gratitude to all our employees for their unwavering dedication and commitment. Our goal is to continue seeking ways to support and recognize all staff as we move forward. We deeply value each and every role in our schools, and we are committed to expanding these efforts to benefit more employees in the future.

[03:20:38] Thank you for your time this evening. I really appreciate it, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Ms. Boland. I was wondering, first, at the Title I school, and you say teachers, all subjects, all grades, that does include EL?

[03:20:54] Yes, ma'am. Okay. And then what about transition specialists, transition teachers at all? Or maybe they're just specialists at this point, they're admin. I mean, I would have to confirm the team went through and made sure to list who was eligible.

[03:21:11] it was very specific to if they were working with students. So if a transition specialist is working directly with special education students, my understanding is that they would receive the bonus. Thank you. Anybody else?

[03:21:29] Yes, Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ms. Boland, for the presentation. I don't think anyone would be surprised that I'm very happy to see this and very excited. I have two questions. Can you remind us where these funds are coming from?

[03:21:46] I'm mainly asking because I know a number of us had had discussions about trying to implement a retention bonus with end-of-year funds, but there were lots of barriers with timelines and different things. So I'm just as excited as I am, I'm just curious about how this came about since it wasn't proposed in last year's budget.

[03:22:03] Yes, ma'am. At the end of last school year, there was some discussion, And I will ask Ms. Willoughby to assist if I go astray. My understanding was we had put funds within our fiscal year 25 budget to match funds the state was providing for a possible bonus for staff.

[03:22:30] And something LCPS does is whenever the state provides funds for a specific group of positions, we try to offer all staff or more staff. and so we we match that amount of money within our own budget and my understanding is that after the budget was appropriated the state removed that funding and that offer however we still had that lump sum within our budget and so the goal was to find a way to utilize those funds in a way that would represent what what we initially committed to which was some form of

[03:23:07] retention bonus. Now, again, it was a reduced amount of money, so we couldn't do as much, but we wanted to do as much as possible, and we used the data to help assist us in where we need to focus that funding. I appreciate that, and I do feel that this is a great step in the right direction. Of course, we want to do everybody, but I think you're absolutely right. That's definitely what we're hearing and seeing. My second question has to do with Title I schools. We had a shift of our district-level instructional

[03:23:43] facilitators being placed as school-based. Would they, but they are called district-level instructional facilitators. Would they, I saw they were not on the list. If you were placed at a Title I school, that would not count because you weren't there the previous year. Am I understanding that correctly? That's But it would be an eligibility to consider going forward now that they are school-based?

[03:24:04] If you chose to stay there, yes. Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. And Chair Mansfield, I did get a response in regards to the transition specialists. If they are licensed, they are included. Thank you. Any other questions, board members?

[03:24:24] No? Seeing no more questions. Thank you, Ms. Boland. We will move on. I'm sorry? No, there's nothing. There's no action. I don't know there's no there's nothing for us to vote on correct no ma'am it's just information that's what I thought okay now we will move on to item 11.04 presented by I guess Dr. Rashid

[03:25:03] has asked for this item from Monroe Advanced Technical Academy Admissions presented by Dr. Ashley Ellis our chief academic officer and Neil Slevin our assistant superintendent of teaching and learning.

[03:25:23] - Chair Mansfield, did my name? - Chair. - Yes, Dr. Rasheed. - I just wanted to give some rationale as to why I'm bringing this as an information item. - Of course. - Okay. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to bring this topic as an information item 'cause I just wanted to talk about the accessibility and just talk about what barriers or even removing some barriers for our MATA program.

[03:25:50] And then I also just wanted to shed some light regards to all students having representation at AOL and just wanted the academies to be open and supportive but I will turn it over to Dr. Ellis and Mr. Slevin to present. Thank you Dr. Rasheed and thank you Chair Mansfield.

[03:26:12] Good evening members of the board. Tonight Mr. Slevin and I will share some information as requested by Dr. Rasheed some of which was shared at the October Special Programs and Centers Committee and may look familiar to many of you. We We will provide an overview of the MATA program and an overview of the MATA current admissions process as well as two possible options for changes to the admissions process to make it more accessible for students.

[03:26:40] I do want to be clear that this presentation is only about the MATA program at the Academies of Loudoun and does not consider the AET and AOS programs that have their own separate admissions criteria and processes.

[03:26:57] The Academies of Loudoun is one school community comprised of three distinct curricular programs. Students must apply for admissions and be accepted through a competitive application process for each of the programs. Those who are admitted to the Academies of Loudoun programs become concurrently enrolled in their home high school and the academies and attend on alternating school days.

[03:27:19] And again, this evening we are just focusing on the MATA programs and admissions. You can see on this slide the mission of Academies of Loudoun that was developed as the building was opening in 2018, and the mission of the Monroe Advanced Technical Academy.

[03:27:36] I'll also note that MATA is a Virginia Governor's STEM Academy. Within the MATA program specifically, the STEM coursework was designed to provide students rigorous advanced technical coursework in career and technical education.

[03:27:53] I also want to provide a brief history of MATA. The CS Monroe Technology Center was established in 1977, and it remained open until it closed its doors in 2018 when the Academies of Loudoun building opened.

[03:28:12] That physical building of Monroe Tech Center is where the North Star is now located. When Monroe closed at the end of the 2017-18 school year, there were approximately 555 students enrolled in those programs with many open seats that went unfilled each year.

[03:28:29] Every year since the academies opened, the team has worked hard to redesign and modernize the curriculum and the courses to make them more attractive to students and to meet demands and also ensure that LCPS students were aware of the opportunities available to them.

[03:28:48] Since the opening of the MATA program in 2018, enrollment in MATA has increased steadily year over year until we finally reached maximum enrollment of 1,100 students in the 22-23 school year. We continue to have full enrollment.

[03:29:04] This is the third year in a row that that is true, and we also have waiting lists for the programs. I am very proud of the work of the Academy's team, especially the admissions team, for their outreach and recruitment efforts and the leadership at the Academies that have help this program grow and become in such high demand.

[03:29:23] There are 25 pathways available in the MATA program, and here on this slide you can see the full list of the one-year pathways as well as the two-year pathways. And again, each pathway is multiple credits, and students spend every other day of their year or two years at MATA.

[03:29:43] Every pathway listed has multiple certifications or licenses for students, and those pathways that are dual enrolled are noted in blue. Dual enrollment is offered through our partnership with Northern Virginia Community College, and I'll note that Northern Virginia Community College has its own criteria for participating in dual enrollment courses, and Mr. Sullivan will address that in just a moment. Additionally, we do have a few pathways under review at NOVA to possibly be dual enrollment courses in the 25-26 school year. Also, as a side note, dual enrollment status can

[03:30:20] change based on the instructor of record if if a certified dual enrollment instructor were to leave a position and we were not able to fill it with another certified dual enrollment instructor we would not be able to offer that course as dual enrollment that has happened with a couple of pathways we still run the course but the students and the students still earn certifications excuse me and licenses but not the dual enrollment credit these courses are great opportunities for students and as you can probably tell by the numbers they are in very high demand it makes sense

[03:30:56] that these are in high demand because of the experiences that are offered there are multiple pathways available for students there are unique courses for example biomedical technology and radiology technology are the only courses available for high school students in virginia they're right here at the academies. Auto service technology is a one-of-a-kind certification. Students can earn up to 10 ASC certifications, which means they can leave high school as a master ASC technician.

[03:31:28] So we are very proud of these programs and want to make them accessible to all students. I will also note in board docs you will find a separate document from the presentation that has MATA admissions data for the past six years.

[03:31:45] That should be a valuable resource to you. That and other admissions data for all of our programs in the academies and elsewhere will be shared with the Special Programs Committee in an upcoming meeting. So now that you have some background on the MATA programs and the opportunities students have, I'll turn it over to Mr. Slevin to share a little bit about the current admissions process and then possible modifications to that process to increase access for students to these programs.

[03:32:13] Thank you, Dr. Ellis. Continuing the presentation that was shared previously with our special programs committee, I'll start with reviewing the current MATA admission criteria.

[03:32:28] The six items on this slide capture the criteria that we have for the program. First, we have a personal resume, a career goal statement, a student would be enrolled in Algebra I or higher, a reminder that students are applying, initially for the MATA program in their ninth grade year.

[03:32:47] So this is Algebra I by their ninth grade year. The PSAT score, their high school academic record, which is their GPA, and then a counselor recommendation indicating that they are on time for graduation. The current admissions process is just shown on this slide here.

[03:33:10] Once the student profile is created, there is an admissions review panel that meets. The applicants to the MATA program at the Academies of Loudoun are evaluated exclusively based on their criteria outlined in the published admissions guidelines. And the review process is managed by the admissions and outreach team in collaboration with the Academies of Loudoun Director of School Counseling.

[03:33:31] MATA applicants are offered their first, second, or third MATA pathway choices. And applicants who are not initially offered admissions are placed on a wait list for their first, second, or third MATA pathway choices. These waitlist applicants are considered for admissions based on a thorough review of the published admissions criteria and as seats are available, notifications are sent between March and the start of the school year to make sure that we are able to fill those seats.

[03:33:57] At the special programs committee meeting, we also shared a comparison chart after receiving feedback to give just an idea of what other admission criteria looks like across other STEM academies in the Commonwealth.

[03:34:12] This is not meant to be all-inclusive. We looked at a number of STEM academies in the Northern Virginia area as well as down in Virginia Beach. The chart provides highlights on our analysis focusing on the following criteria, PSAT scores, writing assessments, grades, teacher recommendations, and lottery systems.

[03:34:34] Now I'd like to transition and share two potential options as requested by Dr. Rasheed that we have regarding increasing accessibility to MATA programs. Why? What is the why driving these options? What we heard was that there was an interest to open up career-focused opportunities to a broader cross-section of the LCPS student population while maintaining rigorous pathways. It is important to note that we are in the middle of admissions for multiple special programs. However, the admissions cycle for the MATA program has not

[03:35:13] yet started. Our admissions team will start conducting high school visits starting November 12th. Our first information night for families for the winter admission process is on December 5th and the MATA admissions window will open up for students in the student opportunity portal starting on November 25th for current 9th, 10th, and 11th graders in order to apply for the school year 25-26 and we would want to make sure we're communicating any potential changes fully to students and families for this window. The first option we have is to streamline admission criteria across

[03:35:51] all Mata pathways. We maintain the requirement of enrollment in Algebra I by the time they're applying. We will align our entrance criteria to the requirements of the specific course, specifically either the high school GPA or PSAT. And what I mean by the criteria of the specific course is in many cases a dual enrollment course has a requirement from the university partner in this case northern virginia community college where there is a minimum gpa or a minimum psat so in order to qualify to take the course whether at the academies allowed in or at their home high

[03:36:29] school a student meets a minimum criteria for a gpa or or they could be supported by the psat alternatively and then we would also continue to verify that students are on track to graduate knowing that the leaving their home high school to go to the academies for a full day is a commitment so we want to make sure they have they're on track to graduate with this option one any student who meets the criteria for admission and indicate interest would be then eligible for a lottery process until all pathways are filled option two takes a slightly

[03:37:08] different approach for our non and dual enrollment and dual enrollment pathways. For non-DE pathways, we would take a similar approach to option one. Any students who meet the criteria for admission and indicate interest would be eligible for the lottery process. For option two, the process would be differentiated for our DE pathways at MATA. We maintain the requirement of enrollment in algebra one, align our entrance criteria to the requirements of the specific course, either high school GPA or PSAT, and verify that students are on track to graduate.

[03:37:43] Additionally, we would retain the requirement for a career goal statement. Applicants to the MATA program would then be evaluated exclusively based on these criterias outlined in the published guidelines that we will set forth and a selection committee managed by the admissions and outreach team will place students in the MATA pathways that are DE MATA pathways. This slide has a comparison of the three admissions criterias we discussed this evening. The first being the

[03:38:15] current admissions cycle, option one, and then option two. A few more things to consider in this conversation is that changing the admissions portal does have technical requirements. We're very thankful for the partnership that we have with our colleagues in the Department of Digital Innovation in terms of making sure those systems work and so there would be some time needed to make these changes. We would want to make sure we work on our communication to families and staff in terms of what they should be considering for opportunities going into the 25 school year

[03:38:55] And we may need to rethink our recruitment and outreach strategies. So we would need time to retool our messaging and think about where we're headed when we come to our outreach efforts related to this particular special program or pathway at the Academy's Aladdin.

[03:39:11] So at this time, Dr. Ellis and I are open for any questions, comments, or feedback. Dr. Rasheed. I think there was one item on the board docs.

[03:39:27] I think it was a, by May, there was a table on there expressing some data. If you can briefly mention that, that would be great. Sure. So in BoardDocs, you will see a document that has demographic trends for admissions.

[03:39:44] It's quite lengthy. It's about four pages long, so I will briefly give you an overview of how it's organized and how we consistently share the data for admissions to these special programs. There are three separate categories of data. The students who applied, the first category.

[03:40:04] The students who received offers is the second category. And then the students who were admitted is the third category or were accepted or accepted the offers. So those who applied, those who were offered admissions, and those who accepted their offer and attended.

[03:40:21] and then students come off the waiting list throughout the summer months really from the time the admissions window closes until the first day of school students are making decisions about different programs and their options and deciding to attend a program or not and so the waiting list we pull from the waiting list consistently throughout the summer till the first day of school so you can see the trends over time and the last column on the right shows the six-year trend the percent change. Does that help Dr. Regina? Yes, thank you so much. And if I may have a

[03:40:54] question for her. So what would happen if we wait until, for example, November 12th to make a decision for the admission process? I'll start and then Dr. Ellis can fill in. If we waited till November 12th, it would have a significant impact on our ability to start our recruitment efforts for the program.

[03:41:23] It would not simply be turning on parent nights or visits to schools. There's also, while manageable changes, I'll ask Mr. Smith if he would like to chime in, but there is significant work in the back end of the student opportunity portal that would need to be done.

[03:41:47] That would take some time. So it would hamper our efforts to fully recruit for the program. I have a couple of questions. One is, of course, we see MATA applied for student disabilities as minus 6.1%, and then we have MATA offered for English learners minus 4.7% and minus 8.2% for students with disabilities,

[03:42:21] And then we have accepted for English learners negative 3.3% and negative 8.8% for MATA accepted. So something that I was wondering is you have that Algebra 1 requirement.

[03:42:41] Would you consider having it Algebra 1 Part 1 in 9th grade and Algebra 1 Part 2 in 10th grade? Because that's the track that a lot of students with disabilities go.

[03:42:58] The other question that I have while y'all are thinking about that is we have students with disabilities who are able to stay in school until age 22. We also have EL students who come to us at age 15 who can also stay until age 22.

[03:43:19] So how does that work when thinking about being on track? So I'll answer those questions in reverse order if you don't mind. So regarding students who can stay enrolled in public school until age 22, the majority of those students, and I may ask Ms. Richardson to clarify anything or correct me if I misspeak, the majority of those students who are eligible to remain until 22 are working toward an applied

[03:43:53] studies diploma, and they would not have the time in their schedule to commit to an entire MATA pathway, which is essentially half of an entire year or half of two entire years. The question, though, Ms. Mansfield, is really important, and I appreciate you asking because I think that needs to be part of a larger conversation around programs and pathways and making sure that we have them at home high schools and that they don't necessarily take up half of a student's year, perhaps a one credit course instead of a three or four credit

[03:44:28] course. It also highlights the need to have those career pathways at multiple schools in our comprehensive high schools. And also the conversation around a transition school, I think is important here too. Ms. Richardson, would you add anything to that? Thank you, Dr. Ellis. You did a great job with that. I will tell you that as we've been moving through the planning process for our Transition Center.

[03:44:56] We really have been focused on our students that might be on more of an applied studies pathway. For students with disabilities that are pursuing a standard or advanced standard, they would not be eligible to stay with us if they achieve their diploma.

[03:45:15] So our lens for the creation of the Transition Center is for those students with disabilities that are eligible up to age 22, so that would be our focus. Now, certainly, if we have students that are interested, we would work with staff to make sure that they have the right supports for their services and accommodations. Ms. Richardson, what do you think about the Algebra I in ninth grade?

[03:45:43] Oh, okay. Dr. Ellis just told me to hold on. I was just going to say that for students who are applying to a pathway in for 11th grade or 12th grade they would have then completed algebra one by 11th grade so that would meet the requirements okay so that would meet the requirements if they took it in ninth grade but so if they are still taking algebra one part one and ninth because what i'm reading here is is that they have to have it done by 11th grade or do they have to

[03:46:21] have that requirement of the whole class do you see by the time they enroll in a mata pathway they would have to have algebra one completed and so they can take algebra one in ninth grade algebra two and i mean algebra 1.2 in 10th grade okay yes um miss labelle i just i want to go back to the question of the 22-year-olds. My understanding of IDEA is that a student may remain past the age

[03:46:56] of 18, may stay till 22, even if they are on track for a standard diploma, if their remaining time is also involving a career path program. So if a student, here's my question, if a student is on a regular diploma, plans to finish it at the age of 22 by delaying taking some of the other courses like English or History or Science class that is required, and then spent some of the time

[03:47:36] instead on CTE. Would that disqualify him from going and applying to MATA? He's on track to graduate at the time that he chooses, which would be at age 22, and it's going to be a standard diploma at that point. It's just that he's rearranged his coursework so that he can include the CTE program and come out with the skills. How would that work out? I'm happy to take that one

[03:48:11] for you, Dr. Ellis. Ms. LaBelle, thank you for highlighting the beauty and the spirit of special education, should an individualized educational planning team for a student make a course planning decision to extend the student's tenure in high school beyond four years, which IEP teams can do for students with disabilities that are working towards a standard diploma.

[03:48:42] I would say by the criteria that we've outlined for your consideration as a board, that that particular student would be able to participate in MATA coursework. It is very rare, I must say, for teams to make that decision for students with disabilities that are working towards standard diplomas to be taken off cohort.

[03:49:05] And what does that mean to graduate outside or beyond the class of ninth grade for which they've entered high school? but it certainly is an allowable consideration for individualized educational planning teams. Thank you, Dr. Richardson.

[03:49:22] I've had a few of those students myself that have made that decision to slow down and take the CTE courses. So I just want to make sure that option is still open. Thank you both very much. All of you. One more thing.

[03:49:37] What about the EL students who come in at 15? So the same would be true for EL students if they have met the requirements. and have not yet graduated, they would be eligible to apply.

[03:49:53] Students who, and I would refer to policy 8.1.1.5 for specific language around this and their eligibility to continue, when they reach age 21, they would then shift to an adult education program.

[03:50:09] But prior to that, if they meet the requirements, they would be eligible to apply. - So is there something in our paperwork that contemplates any of that? Because for the counselor, what the counselor has to say that, yes, they're going to, they're on track.

[03:50:27] Is that something that, okay. Yes, Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to clarify. I know that you said that our partnership with Northern Virginia Community College sets the DE standards. That's what you said, correct, for our dual enrollment classes.

[03:50:44] So we would still adhere, we have to adhere to those standards, whether we're lottery or selection committee. So those standards are included in an annual and MOU with Northern Virginia Community College signed by leadership of both organizations. Okay, and then what are the, for the non-DE pathways and coursework, are there minimum GPAs that are set for each individual course, or is that an overall GPA that is set to, that you would, in order to enter the lottery that you would have to hit?

[03:51:15] So we, it would be established at a 2.0. It would be a local determination of a 2.0 to match the DE requirement, the minimum DE requirement. Some of the requirements for dual enrollment are 3.0.

[03:51:33] Some of them are 2.0. So we would have a 2.0 across the board for non-DE pathways. Was that what it was previously for the selection committee? In some cases, we do have programs where there are a different amount of students that are expressing interest.

[03:51:51] And so for the most part, it would be it would be a 2.0. Okay, thank you. Yes Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you madam chair In case I missed it Mata accepted What is the actual number of people they're accepted, but did they attend?

[03:52:17] Am I missing something here? You have five-year trend Mata accepted Let's say broad-run negative 2.4 percent I'm curious to know what number of kids actually attended that were accepted from each school.

[03:52:39] Ms. Griffiths, thank you for that question. And I can get you actual current enrollment information. I don't have that at my fingertips, but I'm happy to provide that to you. Yes, Ms. Chandler. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[03:52:55] And thank you both for this presentation. And thank you, Dr. Rasheed, for bringing this conversation forward. I am really glad that we are engaging in this conversation. I have a rhetorical question, which I don't expect an answer to, and a question.

[03:53:12] And I'll just say, one of the reasons why I'm interested in this as a topic is because it's very important to my community, and it's something that I hear from parents all the time, that they would like to have more access to CTE programs and more opportunities to explore all the opportunities that we have available to our students.

[03:53:34] And my rhetorical question really, again, I don't expect an answer, is how did this come to be? Because it doesn't necessarily make the most logical sense to me to set a college prep exam as a criteria for these pathways that don't necessarily lead to college.

[03:53:52] And that's great. I would never want to have it. I mean, I would never want to track students or limit their ability to explore something. but I absolutely in the same vein do not want to have criteria that limits the ability of all our students to explore the opportunities that are available to them. And so I am very happy to engage in this conversation. I also wanted to ask, just sort of piggyback on Ms. Chernoff's question,

[03:54:22] do both options comply with ANOVA's dual enrollment requirements? Yes. Thank you for that. - I know you weren't looking for an answer, but I think my short answer would be there have been multiple people in board member seats working through the intention and purpose of the academies.

[03:54:46] And one of the things that we try to be really intentional about is our why. Like why are we creating new programs? What do we want them to do for our community? And this is your opportunity to have an impact on that why. And I also think coming off of the workforce summit last Friday, that was a big piece of feedback that I heard about students really wanting to see a cross section of the LCPS community and particularly in our career related programs within LCPS.

[03:55:14] They want students that are going to be going right into the workforce, going on to a two year degree or moving on to a four year degree coming out of our school system. And so this is not a conversation we're having in isolation. It's a bigger vision that I'm hearing from this board in terms of expanding opportunities our students across the board. I do appreciate that clarification. Thank you. And I will just say in looking at the presentation as a whole and noticing what the other types of schools are choosing to do, I think taking this particular piece out of consideration or, you know, off of

[03:55:50] the total picture and choosing our students will bring us in line with what the other governor schools are doing. So thank you so much for those, for that feedback. Yes. Vice Chair Strafi. - Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much.

[03:56:05] I will echo some of the sentiments from board members that this is a very unique opportunity for us in that we're able to allow more people to access these programs. I would also just piggyback off of Ms. Griffith's comments around being very curious about students who may get offered but do not end up going to the school and specifically students also that get offered, accept, stay a while, and then for some reason end up going back to their homeschool and not continuing programs at MATA.

[03:56:40] And I really want to dig into some of your comments, which I think are gems, Dr. Ellis, around our approach to special programs and just making them more accessible to our homeschools.

[03:56:58] We've built amazing academies, and we will continue to do things like that, but we need recognize some of the barriers that might exist that that come that level of commitment it's not just about motivation for a lot of students it's just not a possibility with their family circumstances with other activities as we heard from our student school board representative other activities that they might want to participate in and they shouldn't have to double down to such an extent that, you know, perhaps we are asking, you know, way too much of some of our

[03:57:37] students to then have to sacrifice. So just wanted to double down on that and those future conversations that we will have. Board members, yes, Dr. Hirschi. I just wanted to point out to everyone here on the dais, if you look at the numbers with, and I know, obviously, you've noticed it, and I think Chair Mansfield also pointed it out, I just wanted to reinforce it again that the students with disabilities if you look at the the the offer of MATA from 2019 to 2024 it goes from 17 percent and goes all the way down

[03:58:12] to nine percent that is embarrassing and that's not what LCPS is about and that being said chair Mansfield I like to make a motion to suspend the rules to make the MATA information item an action item and make a motion to direct the staff to implement option one as presented in the beginning with this current winter admission cycle second dr okay dr rasheed would like to suspend the rules i have a second um by miss donahue um it's been properly moved and seconded to suspend the rules i'll remind the board members

[03:58:51] that there is no discussion after a motion is made in the second to suspend the rules and that we must have a two-thirds vote to pass. So, clerk, please open the vote. This is a motion to suspend the rules. Board members, please record your vote.

[03:59:15] Clerk, please close and display the vote. And that motion passes unanimously. So now, Dr. Rasheed, do you have another motion? I'd like to make a motion to direct the staff to implement option one as presented beginning with this winter admission cycle.

[03:59:41] Dr. Rasheed has a motion on the table. Do I have a second? I have a second by Ms. Chandler. It's been properly moved and seconded to move to direct staff to move with motion one. Is there any discussion? Ms. Griffiths, do you have any questions?

[03:59:58] Well, the only question I had was rolling enrollment like what Mr. Estreffy had mentioned. If kids drop out in the middle of the year, is it possible to move the next person in line into that role, even though it may be in the middle of the year.

[04:00:19] I'm just trying to find out if we can do rolling enrollment so other kids can have a chance. Sure, thank you. I'm sorry, didn't mean to cut you off. So students are not taken off the wait list after the first week or two of school. I will also add that attrition is relatively low.

[04:00:37] Students who enroll in the program tend to stay in the program, and those who return to their homeschools is a very rare situation. So it's not like there are multiple empty seats in pathways. Okay, so any other discussion related to Dr. Rasheed's motion?

[04:00:58] Seeing none. Okay, I would, we will now vote on Dr. Rasheed's motion to option, direct staff to option one.

[04:01:16] Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Dr. Ellis. Thank you, Mr. Slevin, for your time.

[04:01:34] And thank you, Dr. Rasheed, for bringing this to the attention of the board. All right. With that, we will move to our closed meeting. I will have Vice Chair Estreffi. Do you have a motion? Yes, Madam Chair.

[04:01:49] I move that the Loudoun County School Board recess this public meeting and enter into a closed meeting pursuant to 2.2-3712 of the Code of Virginia for the following purposes. Discussion and consideration of a student matter that would involve the disclosure of information contained in scholastic records as authorized by Section 2.2-3711A2 of the Code of Virginia.

[04:02:12] Mr. Streffi has made a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second. By Ms. Chernoff, it's been properly moved and seconded that Loudoun County School Board go into closed session. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, clerk, please open the vote.

[04:02:33] Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes unanimously, and the board is now in closed session.

[05:13:12] The board is now coming out of a closed meeting. Mr. Vice Chair Streffi, do you have a motion? Yes, Madam Chair. I move that the closed meeting be adjourned, that the Loudoun County School Board reconvene its public meeting, and that the minutes of the public meeting reflect that no formal action was taken in the closed meeting. Vice Chair Streffi has made a motion to adjourn the closed meeting.

[05:13:30] Do I have a second? Second. I have a second by Ms. Chernoff. It's been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board adjourned the closed meeting. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote. Clerk, please open the vote.

[05:13:45] Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. Motion passes unanimously. We will move on to 12.03. Vice Chair Struffy, do you have another motion?

[05:14:05] Yes, Madam Chair. I move that the following resolution certifying the closed meeting be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting, whereas the Loudoun County School Board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. And whereas 2.2-3712D of the Code of Virginia requires a certification by the school board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law, now therefore be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification applies

[05:14:42] and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the Loudoun County School Board. I have a motion by Vice Chair Struffy. Do I have a second? I have a second by Ms. Chandler. Is there any discussion?

[05:14:59] Seeing no discussion, we'll take an electronic vote. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes unanimously.

[05:15:16] board members do you want to continue on with item 13 your committee committee comments and committee reports or do you want to skip to new business yes okay yeah okay um item 14 new business do we have any new business no okay then we will move to item 15 adjournment and the loudon county school board for october 22nd 2024 is now adjourned thank you

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