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Loudoun County School Board, Human Resources and Talent Development (HRTD) Committee Meeting, Thursday, February 27, 2025

Date: Thursday, February 27, 2025
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 35m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1061047281?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 2026-10-16. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:30] Good afternoon. My name is Dena Griffiths, calling to order the HRTD committee meeting for February 27th, 2025. I have Ms. Chandler and Vice Chair Donahue presiding along with me. We will begin with public comment. The meeting will be audio recorded and posted to board docs.

[00:00:48] Today we have one speaker signed up for the public comment. We will allow two minutes. Our first speaker is Ms. Weisskopf. Thank you. Good evening. One of the policies you're looking at tonight states that LCPS employees cannot be paid.

[00:01:12] Oh, here we go. One of the policies you're looking at tonight states that LCPS employees cannot be paid for other work when they are during LCPS contract time, which I agree.

[00:01:30] and it does state without superintendent approval again I agree however according to local media Dr. Spence did just that while at a conference that the school board had approved and was on the school which means as a taxpayer my dime if those reports which were in the local news are true, that needs to be addressed with him, because while it may be legal, it is not ethical.

[00:02:04] So I do, again, that's according to local media. I do think that is something that should be discussed about whether it is ethical for him to do that if it is not for employees. Black Lives Matter. Thank you.

[00:02:21] Thank you very much. And with that, let's see, we will move on to our information items. We will move on to 4.01 Policy 7020, employment or supervision of family members. Ms. Boland?

[00:02:41] Minutes. Oops, I forgot to do the minutes. Sorry. Let's see. How did I miss that? You know what? It was right at the top and I missed it. We're going to move on to 3.1, approval of the December 19th, 2024 draft minutes.

[00:02:59] Could I please have a motion to approve the December 19th meeting minutes? I make a motion to approve the meeting minutes. Thank you. The motion has been made by Ms. Chandler and seconded by Ms. Donahue. Is there any discussion?

[00:03:17] Okay. All those in favor, raise your hand and say aye. All those opposed, raise your hand and say nay. Aye. Aye. Thank you. And with that, we will move on to 4.01, Policy 7020, Employment or Supervision of Family Members.

[00:03:33] Thank you. Good evening. So we are bringing Policy 7020, Employment of Supervision of Family Matters, forward for your review as an information item this evening. And I will forward it to or turn it over to Nicole Davis, HRTD Director, to provide additional details of the recommended edits and changes.

[00:03:56] Good evening. As mentioned by Ms. Boland, we have recommended changes to policy 70-20 for you tonight. Essentially, it looks like there has a lot of deletions and edits to this policy. However, it was just reorganized for clarity and organizational purposes.

[00:04:14] Sections A1, A2, and A3 were added to clearly delineate the policy sections and add the definition of family members to the forefront of the policy. Sections 3A, 3B, 3C were retitled and were previously A1, A2, and A3.

[00:04:34] Sections 4 and 5 were reorganized as they were previously B and C to clearly outline the certification on non-involvement in hiring of relatives for both the school board and superintendent. The definition of family members was also removed from the previous sections and again moved to the beginning of the policy for clear organizational purposes.

[00:04:56] for sections b supervision and b1 the term administrative relationship was added to further define the role in relationship in which a family member should not be employed thank you thank you is there any discussion uh with i guess with no discussion um we can move this if we want to to consent i believe right no you would bring it we would have to go out for feedback it's an information item this evening okay so it would come back in march as an action all right got it

[00:05:32] All right. Thank you so much. And with that, we will move on to 4.02-7320, Staff Health. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Griffiths. So, yes, we are bringing Policy 7320, Staff Health, before the committee as an information item this evening.

[00:05:51] And I will turn it over to Jeanette Evans, Director of Employee Benefits, to talk you through the changes. Good evening. As mentioned by Ms. Bolin, we have recommended changes to Policy 7320 for you tonight. Language was added to the introduction to explain the purpose of the policy more clearly.

[00:06:12] In Section A, language was updated regarding the medical providers from whom we can accept TB tests. Results under the Code of Virginia, a variety of medical providers can provide TB test results. And also in Section A, the length of time preceding the certification was increased from 3 to 12 months as permitted under the Code.

[00:06:35] So somebody can have had the certification within the past 12 months. In Section B, specific disease identification was removed. The language was considered to be old and circumstances changed, new things changed.

[00:06:54] So we took out specific disease and made that a little bit clearer. Also in Section B, language was added regarding the notification of the Loudoun County Health Department regarding diseases have previously reported or that which require the assistance of the department.

[00:07:12] This update is consistent with the VSPA model policy and the reporting relationship is addressed in the regulation. In Section C, language was updated for clarity regarding the symptoms versus disease and the code references were updated.

[00:07:33] And that's the changes. Thank you very much. Is there a discussion? Yes, Ms. Chandler. thank you madam chair um and and thank you miss evans um i am grateful that you mentioned uh specifically the change from three to 12 months that was a question that i had is that a recent change to the code or is that a long-standing i don't know how long that has been in code it's long-standing so it's we're more in alignment with the code as a result of this

[00:08:06] change in policy. Thank you. And then I am curious if the code outlines what responsibility an employee has to notify the division in the event of a blood-borne illness.

[00:08:23] And so that's addressed in the regulation, yes. And the regulation hasn't, the only change in the regulation was updating the date and the code references. Great. Okay. I'll be sure to check that out before we have it come back. Thank you. Any other discussion?

[00:08:40] I had some questions. The policy is a little confusing. The clean copy of the policy removes the following sections from the old policy, enhanced health screenings, mitigation protocols, high-risk employees.

[00:08:56] The red line copy does not show strikethroughs where sections D, E, and F were removed. It's not clear if the regulation that accompanies this policy will be updated. Under Section B of the clean copy, blood-borne, contagious, or communicable disease lines 24 to 27, it says at the direction of the school board, the superintendent may exclude from school or the work environment any employee who has a blood-borne, contagious, or communicable disease.

[00:09:33] Can you clarify this language? It was not in the old version of the policy. Under section C of the clean copy, other conditions of infectious diseases, line 46 to 48, it says any employee who is suspected of having a contagious or communicable disease other than those covered in paragraph B shall be examined by a school nurse or public health nurse to confirm the presence or absence of symptoms of a disease.

[00:10:03] the language contagious or communicable disease seems very vague if you could tell me what that means is it different from a virus or infection like the common cold and just to hop on uh what miss chandler had said um i i believe you had mentioned code uh but it is it up to the employee to let us know um or can they be taking care of this on their own um if they have an issue um because it says here the school nurse you know they're talking to the school nurse can they handle

[00:10:39] any issues on their own and please go over that code with us again please thank you i know it's a lot okay i don't have the code pulled up right this minute but um what i can say is in a communicable disease um when they're talking about that in this policy we're specifically looking at things like tuberculosis or HIV. Those were the previously identified. For example, COVID. Can we force

[00:11:15] employees to tell us? They should tell us. It's required that they tell us, but we're not going to go to their doctors and ask them. We can ask for a note if an employee is ill about their return to work, but they have privacy rights as well. Ms. Chandler? This is a clarification to your point i'm thinking about um something like whooping cough if the health department were to notice that

[00:11:53] there were something like that in the environment would they offer us an at a notification yes so we work with um the school nurses student health up in the support um student support department and if there were to be something like that then and it's reported to the school they'll report it to the health department, if they, as the school, find a student or a staff member seems to be symptomatic, they will ask them to get tested and then report that to the health department.

[00:12:26] But we can't go to an employee's doctor and ask for a certification. We can ask the employee to bring us a note that says that they are cleared to return to work, but they don't necessarily have to tell us what's wrong. - That's good to know, thank you.

[00:12:43] Thank you, Mr. Chandler. If I may, it says here, be examined by a school nurse or public health nurse. So nurses at the schools would be examining this person and then making a judgment, possibly?

[00:13:01] So, for example, in the case of whooping cough, if a staff member were suspected, the school nurse could say, you need to go see your doctor or you need to go see the health department. I'm concerned. We're not asking them to make a diagnosis.

[00:13:19] But, yes, the school nurse also does the reporting to the health department. Are there any other questions? I think this policy still needs to be reviewed, and it is an information item today.

[00:13:38] So I'm glad we did go over it. And we can, I think at this point, move to the next item. So this policy can go out for feedback, and we'll bring it back as an action item. Right. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[00:13:54] Let's see. Now, we can move on to 4.037520, non-school employment. Ms. Boland, are you presented? Thank you so much. So, just like the other two policies tonight, policy 7560, non-school employment, is being brought before the committee as an information item.

[00:14:16] I will, again, be turning it over to Nicole Davis to review any changes and or edits. Good evening again. There was minimal changes to this policy, really language added to clarify based on questions that we receive from staff throughout the years regarding this specific non-school or outside employment. Section three, we added a sentence to clarify examples of what solicitation is, the sentence specifically for which employees may receive compensation versus those that they

[00:14:51] may not receive compensation. So section B1, we added a second paragraph to address employment while an employee is out on leave. And this is in order to ensure that employees are out on leave, leave such as sick leave, paid medical, other leaves, are not also working during their normally scheduled contract hours with LCPS.

[00:15:13] For example, just to put perspective to this, it could be a school nutrition worker out on FMLA who also has a job at a restaurant and takes shifts during the hours in which they should be contracted with an LCPS, so 8:30 to 4:30. It's not limiting them from outside employment outside of those hours on weekends, non-contract days, non-contracted hours.

[00:15:34] And this was requested to assist with benefit questions that we received consistently. Thank you. Thank you very much. Does anybody have any questions or discussion? Looks like we do not.

[00:15:51] Ms. Chandler? There were a couple of things that I appreciated in this policy, including the carved out surrounds In section two, around solicitation, I guess, and that sort of, I can remember a time when it was very prevalent in the community with MLMs and other things like that, and I'm glad that we explicitly call that out here.

[00:16:26] In terms of outside employment, what does the process look like when an employee asks? Generally, they'll ask their supervisor, and then the supervisor generally will come to HRTD just to make sure that they're they're interpreting policy correctly and then once the supervisor provides you know that guidance it's generally a supervisor request and it could

[00:16:56] be escalated at times if there's any gray areas. Thank you. Any other discussion? I'll just wait a

[00:17:08] minute. Okay in the last piece about liability could you offer me some examples of off-duty

[00:17:41] employment that would involve LCPS students? So employees working in off-duty employment or activity involving any LCPS students shall notify the students' parents and guardians in writing. Could you expound on that a little bit? It's at line 75. I would read that as if, let's say, an employee has a second job and maybe has a student working for them, that there's just no

[00:18:20] blurred lines in terms of that, and the liability isn't held from LCPS. It's a separate entity that's responsible for that. Thank you for that. Thank you, Ms. Chandler. Any other discussion? I guess we'll move on with that for feedback, and we'll move on to our next info item, 4.04 policy 7612, experience credit for teachers, license, and auxiliary new hires.

[00:18:50] Thank you, Mrs. Griffith. I'm actually extremely excited to bring the changes to this policy to committee this evening in the hopes of moving it forward, and I will turn it over to Nicole Davis to share those changes with you. Thank you.

[00:19:08] So yes, we are very excited to bring this forward as we hope it will help with our recruitment and retention efforts and being the employer of choice. Simply, we've also updated some titles throughout the policy to reflect our current salary scales. But outside of that, in Section A7, we have included language to allow for a one-time step placement credit for those employees who complete a teacher placement or school counseling internship program with LCPS. This would include any placement or internship that is 400 hours or more providing direct support to students. We have also included language that in order to receive the step credit, the individual must accept a position with LCPS within a 12-month period.

[00:19:48] And again, this is to help with recruitment and retention of staff. Section B3 was added to provide step placement credit for full-time paid internship experience with LCPS. At this time, the only program that meets this definition is the school psychologist, and previously credit for the internship experience was not given. With this language, they would be eligible for a step placement of a one-time step placement. Similar to Section A7 above, we also recommend the addition of similar language to B4. This update would allow school social worker interns

[00:20:25] a one-time step placement credit for those in programs of 400 hours or more, and similar stipulations would apply to those in teacher placements. As previously mentioned, recruitment and retention is a key initiative for HRTD and LCPS. If you recall at the October 22nd, 2024 school board meeting, Ms. Bolin presented on several employee incentives that we implemented.

[00:20:51] One of those incentives was the removal of the 15-year maximum allowable credit for newly hired teachers and licensed and auxiliary employees. As such, you will see that section D of this policy is being eliminated, excuse me, eliminated to align with this change. We are excited to enter the new hiring season with removal of this experience credit cap for license and auxiliary new hires. And finally, in section A, we added language to clarify experience not allowed for

[00:21:20] step placement. Thank you. Thank you. Any discussion? Ms. Chandler. Okay. So I very much appreciate the new language in section 7 that will allow us to offer more credit for work done especially around student teacher placements in school counseling interns that implementation will apply to anyone who's hired after July 1st and it's in and going forward but there's not a retroactive piece to it that is

[00:21:58] correct. And then the type of service for in, I guess we'll go to B, are there other examples of auxiliary positions where experience might be applied other than the ones that are listed?

[00:22:19] We try to capture all of those that we were aware of, and then we'll just continue to monitor it if there are special circumstances that come in. And then I would just, it's my final question, Madam Chair. Thanks. In Section D, where experience credit is not allowable, is this a normative standard that's applied across school divisions? Yes, that is correct. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Chandler. I think, unless there's any other discussion, we will move that on to feedback,

[00:23:00] and thank you so much for the policies today. I would like to move on to 5.01. It's not necessarily new business, but I have some discussion items I would like to discuss. I had some questions. I know Ms. Willoughby is not here today, but I did have a question on the $1,000 bonuses going to teachers. I think it was a little confusing for me because the verbiage was saying it could be $1,000, it could be less. So I'd like to get some clarification because I think that I heard

[00:23:38] Ms. Willoughby said everybody will get $1,000, but there is some verbiage in here where they might not. It might be $500. So can you explain that to me? You know, my understanding is everybody's getting the 4% COLA plus a step increase. Does everybody get this $1,000 bonus?

[00:24:00] So I can't speak to that 100%. I would have to defer to Ms. Willoughby or at least get additional information. What I do know is that historically, when we have received money from the state, their SOQ estimates are very different than LCPSs. For example, they often have a

[00:24:31] 1 to 35 ratio where we staff 1 to 25. And so recognizing that the money the state provides will never be enough and we can't differentiate. When I mean SOQ like 1 to 35, one teacher for every 35 students. Our staffing standard is one to every 25 students. So we will always have more teachers than the allotment of money that they are willing to provide us. So LCPS has historically not, has historically made the decision that if we are going to go forward with this type of

[00:25:11] funding that we will supplement to ensure that all staff receive the same bonus versus trying to differentiate who can have it versus who will not. That's my understanding. So it would be the same amount for everybody, but it might not be $1,000.

[00:25:30] Yes, ma'am. It is typically the same amount across the board. The $1,000 for me really depends on I'm not sure what the state is providing. I'd have to really look into what the verbiage is that the state is requiring. Usually there are requirements on what we provide, what we use the money for.

[00:25:50] But yes, if we decided it's 500 for every employee, every employee would get 500. Thank you. Any discussion on that? And that was discussed at the Board of Supervisors meeting as well. So I just wanted to bring that to the table today.

[00:26:08] Also, Ms. Boland, we've gone back and forth about the Shine Awards. And I had recommended to people that had over 20 years experience. And I just wanted to get more information from you or actually get information so you could share it with other people.

[00:26:29] And it's not just me. What, you know, if somebody recommends somebody, what are the, what's the criteria for somebody to receive a SHINE award? You had mentioned that I guess you're limited on how many awards you can give out per year.

[00:26:46] Just clarify for me, I have seen some people with less than 20 years receive awards, so I'm trying to understand how you're going about picking people to receive these awards. Thank you.

[00:27:03] So I think we're talking about two things. One is submitting an employee for SHINE recognition, and there are multiple categories by which you can submit an individual based on what it is, and that is all on our website.

[00:27:20] So, for example, the two individuals you submitted for, and anyone can submit an employee for a SHINE award, a fellow staff member, a student, a community member. There is no criteria by which they would or wouldn't receive.

[00:27:39] If they are submitted, they receive a Shine Award, which constitutes putting that recognition on our website. It lives there, and their story to recognize them. They also get a certificate and a notification that they have been recognized as a Shine Award.

[00:27:58] And our recognition supervisor does a little summary to provide them some type of information about what is being recognized, what the nomination mentions. When we talk about the second factor, that is through our partnership with LEF.

[00:28:18] And so what they have decided is that they want to further recognize our outstanding exemplar staff members. And so they randomly select one submission per month to then recognize further and provide an award up to $500. And that is what you are seeing. That one individual is who you are seeing being recognized at the board meeting when Dr. Spence announces it. It's that additional one employee

[00:28:50] per month that LEF has randomly selected to receive an additional award. Thank you for the clarification yeah I was trying to understand that that he mentions I think one or two people at the meetings and actually I went on the website to see if the people I had recommended were there I don't think they were but I think they were they received the award over the summer I'm not quite sure but I guess I'll be in touch with the LEF just to find out what their criteria is and

[00:29:27] how they go about finding people but is there something else you wanted to add for clarification yeah and I will say that I'm not sure LAF has a criteria either it is a randomized selection per month but what I will say is we would love to recognize all of our submissions at the school board meeting but just to give some context we have anywhere from on the low side which is over the summer in July 25 submissions per month like of people to upwards of 123 in one month

[00:30:06] so it would be very difficult for us to recognize every single month every employee that is recognized which we love that we have so many but that would be extremely difficult I just want to add that it helps in morale when it is announced at the school board meetings I don't know if If they're, with just the Shine Awards, not through LEF, I don't know if there's a way we can provide a list or mention their names, because I do think that helps in morale and retention.

[00:30:40] And I think it's a great program. So that's why I wanted to just bring it up today and get clarification. Did you want to say something else, Ms. Boland? I just want to say I think that's a great thing to think through as we continue to find ways to expand this program.

[00:30:58] Keep in mind, I have one supervisor that oversees all of recognition for LCPS, but she is fabulous. But there is always ways that we can expand the program where this is only, I think, our second year of doing this.

[00:31:17] So we're just really thrilled of how it's taken off and how people really seem to enjoy it and love it. So finding a way to expand that recognition is great. Will you accept ideas from school board members? Absolutely. As long as I can keep it within capacity. Otherwise, I'll accept FTEs too.

[00:31:40] Well, thank you. Thank you very much for going through that. And my last item today, and I'm hoping to have a discussion. I had spoken to you on email about it. I was curious to know about an equal opportunity office. Generally, in most companies and federal offices, you do have an equal opportunity office so i was just curious to know did we you said we don't have one did we ever um and if you could give a history i mean you know did we ever have one um and it's not uh functioning at this time so i was just curious if you can give a little history on that

[00:32:19] so we do not have a specific equal opportunity office and since i've been here i don't recall ever having one. And it's not necessarily uncommon for organizations to be structured differently and not have a specific office. So we have equal opportunity related functions across multiple departments rather than having a dedicated office. So we have decided, I guess, in terms to centralize or distribute responsibilities.

[00:32:57] So, for example, let me give you some examples. The responsibilities are typically carried out within the HR office, but there are other offices as well. So some of the teams that support equal opportunity efforts through various policies and regulations include policy 7014, which is our non-discrimination policy.

[00:33:20] And so that would be like our workplace relations team that would investigate allegations of violations against that policy. The Title IX office, we have regulations 80-30 and 80-35.

[00:33:36] And so those are out of student services. And so those employees would kind of govern that grievance process. And outside of that, I can look into something further if there's something in particular, but LCPS has distributed tasks throughout offices to follow the law that best associate with those departments.

[00:34:06] Does that help? Yes, it does. I was just trying to get an idea because every company, whether it's federal or government, whatever, They all have their little tagline at the bottom when they're hiring.

[00:34:22] We're an equal opportunity employer and that sort of thing. So I just wanted to know if we had had any history previously with any issues that may have happened where somebody didn't feel like they were treated equally and they needed to go to some office for assistance.

[00:34:42] So I just wanted to get that history, and I didn't know how long you've been here and if we had anything like that previously. So I just wanted to bring it up for discussion and ask my colleagues if they had any questions about it or wanted to discuss it.

[00:34:58] It was just something I was thinking. Any discussion? No? All right, so that was pretty much it. And I think that's it for today. So with that, I think we could probably adjourn unless anybody else has any other new business.

[00:35:18] So I guess we are adjourned. Thank you.

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