Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Public Schools, Specialized Programs & Centers Committee Meeting, Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Date: Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Place: LCPS Administration Building / School Board Room, Ashburn, Virginia
Length: 56m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1071782729?rel=0

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 2026-10-13. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] - Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call this April 1st meeting of this Special Programs and Centers Committee to order. My name is Dr. Rasheed and I'm the chair of this committee. We appreciate everyone being here. So the purpose of today is to approve the minutes from our last meeting.

[00:00:17] We have an action item for the charter schools for school year 25 and 26 in regards to their calendars. And we have two information items. That's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology update. And we also have a Parkview High School International Baccalaureate authorization timeline.

[00:00:36] Just to give an update on that. So before we proceed, we value public input. So if there's anyone from the public who wishes to address the committee, please fill out a speaker card at the registration table. But we'll go ahead and open the floor to public comment. If you wish to speak, please come forward, state your name, and limit your comments to strictly one minute.

[00:00:58] I see we have Joe Mr. Joe Esposito hi everybody I try to be nice and not come back too often since I bothered you all so much last year but I just very briefly wanted to mention something that just a bit of a concern and I to highlight it for this committee first because you guys certainly understand us better than any anybody else on the board in two more recent things that the board has done which I think are great actions they've looked at expanding security by doing allied security all the elementary schools and then also address the idea of adding playgrounds all to schools because the importance of

[00:01:34] recess and play and unfortunately when we asked about our participation in these programs we were told that we would have to pay for them on our own my concern here is that the only thing that we're being told is that because your charter you don't get this and to me I think we had plenty of debates last year I will not rehash them about what's a benefit or not a benefit to the charters versus a regular school but to me this is directly in line with what the state code talks about when it comes to a financial disincentive for being a charter versus a financial incentive I certainly though I disagreed and understood where you all were coming from on the thank you mr. Esposito I'm

[00:02:12] sorry we're out of time I appreciate it so much thank you thank you so thank you to everyone and thank you to mr. Esposito for providing comments your input is valuable to us and but moving on we have to approve the minutes from our last meeting and has everyone had a chance to approve our meeting minutes are there any additions or modifications or corrections if not I entertain a motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting so thank you mr. Streffi so for the minutes do I hear a second to approve the minutes I second thank you

[00:02:50] all those in favor say aye the minutes are approved all right so let's begin by reviewing the agenda and again I think I kind of went over it before we're going to have one action item for the charter school school year 25-26 calendar and we have two information items for TJ and one for Parkview in regards to the IB authorization timeline. Are there any adjustments, additions, or any comments on the agenda? Okay so we'll go ahead and move on to our first agenda item. I'll turn it over to I will turn it over to Ms. Mitchell if she's here

[00:03:26] but if not, Dr. Ellis to present. Thank you. So I do not, good afternoon, I do not have any additional information regarding the charter school calendars that Ms. Lehman presented last at your last meeting. I will just remind the committee that this is an annual occurrence that the charter schools bring calendars to the full board for approval. Middleburg Community Charter has different start and end dates but the same number of school hours it does meet the video requirements for school days and hours HCA has a very similar

[00:04:02] calendar to the LCPS calendar they attend a slightly longer day again both calendars meet the video requirements and then the other thing that I'll note for you is that we are recommending that the committee vote to approve that this move to the full school board on the consent agenda to expedite the process and allow the schools to post their calendars as soon as possible thank you Dr. Ellis members of the committee do you have any discussion comments anything in regards to this item before we go for a vote so if there's no questions I'll

[00:04:38] entertain a motion to approve this action item for 4.01 charter school school year 25 to 26 calendar to go to the full board do I hear a second second all those in favor say aye and that motion passes to go to the full board thank you so much now we will move on to our next agenda item and that's information item for TJ's TJ for science and technology update yes mr.

[00:05:08] seven clarify was it intentional to not put it on the consent or did you want to I thought I said I would we would send it to the full board as a consent oh I have to be specific yes so as in a consent agenda definitely so we should do the revote again yeah of course absolutely all right do I see a motion to send I'd like to make a motion to send item 4.01 charter school school year 25 26 calendar as a consent agenda item to the full board do I have a second second

[00:05:46] get all those in favor say aye aye okay and that that item moves to the full board all right we will now move on to the next item which is an information item 5.01 Thomas Thomas Jefferson High School for science and technology update I'll turn it over to Mr. Subman thank you thank you Dr. Rasheed we are prepared today to give a short presentation on an overview of Thomas Jefferson High School School for science and technology this was at the request of the committee to learn a little bit more about what does Thomas Jefferson offer compared to our offerings here in LCPS even though Thomas Jefferson is not a

[00:06:26] Loudoun County special program it is a student opportunity that we promote and is available to students in LCPS so it's important for the board to be informed and so we're joined tonight by Ms. Clark and Ms. King our gifted supervisor who will take us through this presentation and answer any questions the committee might have after their update so the Virginia Department of Education in conjunction with localities sponsors regional academic year governor school that serve advanced high school students during the academic year.

[00:07:05] Currently, 19 academic year governor schools provide students with acceleration exploration in areas ranging from arts to government and international studies and, of course, STEM. And the regulations governing educational services for gifted students mandate differentiated instructional opportunities for gifted students in K-12 in Virginia.

[00:07:29] and the Virginia's academic governor's school program is really an important component of offering those differentiated instruction or the indifferentiated instruction. Most school divisions in the state incorporate an academic year governor's school as an option for their students and TJ provides our students with access to an academic year's governor's school program and LCBS has been supporting this opportunity since 1985-86 school year. So we

[00:08:03] have two slides here of some of those exciting things that TJ offers to our students but I'm going to talk a little bit more about the things that I think really rise up for TJ so supporting some of Loudoun County's most talented STEM students and attending TJ is really an investment in their future but also the broader community so TJ offers unparalleled opportunities for students passionate about STEM with eight standalone labs and an integrated engineering lab that fosters hands-on learning and innovation and over the past

[00:08:41] 30 almost 40 years TJ has cultivated a robust network of industry partners and universities providing students with exceptional research opportunities and real-world experience and as a top-ranked program both in the state and nationally TJ ensures that students receive a world-class education preparing them to become or really are leaders in STEM fields so by continuing to support these students Bowdoin County School Board is not only nurturing

[00:09:21] individual talent and students but also contributing to the advancement of science and technology on a much larger scale all right this slide shows us the enrollment over the past three school years for ninth through twelfth grade as you can see we hover right around that 400 students who attend from louden county public schools we did experience an increase in enrollment during the 21-22 school year and that was due to the tj admission standards for that year and the expansion of the ninth grade class from 480 students to

[00:10:01] 550 students we do expect that enrollment numbers to level off as this year the new standards will have rolled up through grades 9 through 12 at this point as far as students dropping out of the program you will see for example in school year 22 23 we had 111 ninth graders and then you'll see in 10th grade in 23 24 it drops to a hundred so we do see some shifting late in summer or shortly after school starts however those numbers are small and we also see that attrition due to students

[00:10:38] moving out of the area or some of our students move to Fairfax and also some end up going to private schools in high school as well so you will see some shift but for the majority of it it does stay pretty pretty consistent this chart shows the schools that are participating with TJ so you see we have Arlington Falls Church City Loudoun and Prince William and just noted there for you which school systems do provide that transportation and that is on the

[00:11:14] sending county to provide per the contract this chart shows the transportation for students attending TJ and again that is the responsibility of and is at the discretion of the cooperating school division in which the student resides so in SY25 there are 11 bus hub sites and 8 buses allocated to TJ runs from Loudoun County you will see the cost from SY20 and SY21 are lower and that was due to

[00:11:51] COVID and virtual instruction and there has been significant increases beginning in the SY22 and those are due to when bus drivers were moved to the universal scale in March of 2022 their hourly rates increased substantially so just wanted to point out a couple things that are causing the discrepancies of cost over over the years so that concludes our quick and brief update about Thomas Jefferson High School if you have any questions we'd be happy to answer those at this time thank you so much you know

[00:12:30] this is really helpful with all the details especially that you know the tables that really puts things in perspective I wanted to open the floor for discussion members of the committee do you have any questions or comments I do but I will ask you guys if you want to ask those questions yes Mr. Estrella I'll start off with the first question. So I'm just curious, could we also see the number of students that have applied to TJ and how they trend over time when compared to the students that actually enroll?

[00:13:04] I think that would be helpful as well, just to see how many students are actually expressing interest in this opportunity. And although we are seeing enrollment go up, I'm just curious as to whether applications have gone up as well.

[00:13:21] start there. We're not ready to answer that now, but that's definitely something we can put together and share with the committee. Any other questions or comments about this update?

[00:13:41] I had some questions. Some of them you have already answered. In that table with the school years, with the cohort showing from 9th, 10th, 11th, all the way to 12th, I was just curious because I know this wasn't attributed to COVID, and maybe I'm not reading the table right.

[00:13:59] Is there a cap for Loudon students when they apply to TJ? Is there a maximum as to how much TJ accepts in regards to applicants when they apply in their ninth grade? Or if they decide mid-year, in the middle of high school, like 10th grade, 11th grade?

[00:14:18] Because in that table, I think there were 84 ninth graders last year that got accepted. But then when you look at 10th grade, it jumps to 114. So I was just curious as to why there's a little bit of a jump there between the two cohorts, if you guys know.

[00:14:37] It is a little bit lower than what we've seen in the past, so we feel like it's leveling off a little bit. But the 114 is, if you look at the previous year, the freshmen, that 116, and then the next year, or excuse me, it was the next year they're at 114, so that probably dropped at about two.

[00:14:59] Is this the same cohort when you look at it diagonally? Yes. those ninth graders in the in the middle then moved to 10th grade in the right side of the right yes absolutely I see look at it in terms of numbers so each year there are two sets of seats for students there's the allocated seats and the unallocated seats and so every middle school in Loudoun County gets a certain number of allocated seats and that's 1.5 percent of their eighth grade class so if there's like 560 in the eighth grade class that might be about

[00:15:37] eight allocated seats and so all the students from that school are compared to each other and then of the qualifying candidates they might get eight seats but then there's this other pot of seats and those are unallocated and those are for just overall top candidates so in other words if you add up the 1.5 for every school there's a certain number and I think that number was like around 76 but we could have additional students added to it from the unallocated seat so there's a little bit of a cap but not completely because you have those unallocated as well yeah with the exception

[00:16:16] of one cohort I think the rest stayed the same none of them increased when you follow them through on that table yeah and every now and then you get an increase and that may be due to a couple of things one could be could be a TJ student from another one of the cooperating divisions moving into Loudon so that could be one and then the other they have a very small number of students who can apply as freshmen sophomore and juniors so those numbers are just so small but they are there interesting for transportation

[00:16:51] from other counties is there any data available as to how many buses go to TJ from their area so we started looking into this so we can continue but we did get some information from Prince William County that they send three buses from the district to TJ each day and that I can imagine because the logistics but I'm just curious about the faraway places like Prince William and I had some of

[00:17:19] the other Prince William has the three okay I know one of them says no they don't send they don't use transportation in that chart yeah false Church City we still do you do you think that I'm just out of curiosity do you think that the three buses could be due to just logistics is it closer in vicinity to Prince William is that why they only have fewer buses or fewer of their students get accepted it could be fewer number students it also could be

[00:17:57] the way they do hub stops looking at the hub stop locations for TJ we do have geographic considerations and how many but I forgot I think we had eight or was it okay but we send eight buses and they're picked up John champ Broad Run High School Broward Woods Loudoun Valley Heritage Freedom Rockridge now once the draw I don't know if you guys know this for LCPS bus drivers when they drop off

[00:18:34] the students at TJ where from wherever hub stop they were do the driver stay there in that area or do they go do they go on their way do they go home or something like that or the off the clock if that's lack of a better word and if so if they stay there do we pay them like are they on our payroll so after dropping this we after dropping students off at TJ the drivers return to their parking location in Loudoun County and return in the afternoon for dismissal drivers who transport students to TJ are compensated under the same pay scale

[00:19:10] instruction how bus drivers transport to LCPS to LCPS schools but due to the distance traveled with just few exceptions they're really only able to support the trips to TJ so they're not often assigned to field trips or other elementary middle school or high school routes so they so they stay they stay in the area they basically come back okay yes yes Ms. LaBelle?

[00:19:38] So essentially, because they make the trip to TJ and back twice a day, they're using twice the gasoline or energy because they're using it, coming back to us instead of staying there during the day.

[00:19:55] Is that correct? Yes. Thank you. Is that normally with, normally LCPS drivers and wherever they drive, is this the same protocol? I'm assuming it is. I'm not familiar with the exact protocol.

[00:20:13] could get more information on this and then when I had some other questions I wrote down when you're dealing with the one about the the cost when you're dealing with the data table about transportation costs could you provide a reasoning for the jump from the average cost of 2014 to 2020 I think you said this already there was a jump from the average from 2014 to when COVID started and then there was a spike in 2022 um is there you know if you could provide explanation i think

[00:20:45] you did say it yeah the information we had for that for that spike in 2022 is the bus drivers going to that universal scale and their their costs their hourly rate increased yes miss labelle when i look at the chart that you have for lcps transportation costs that is only for the buses the gas, going back and forth, et cetera, that doesn't include tuition to TJ, does it?

[00:21:21] If you include that tuition, how much does that raise the cost per student going? I'll ask Ms. King to correct me, but I believe the FY25 budgeted cost was $7.25 million. The actual cost for this school year, it was $6.

[00:21:50] Oh, but you're right. You're right. Budgeted for... So the actual cost was $6.7 million for FY25. For FY20? The current fiscal year. 26. 25 we don't have the actual for 26 and we don't have that yet we have the budgeted cost for FY 26 the actual cost for FY 25 was 6.7 million okay thank you thank you and then from when it went from in that same in the same cost when you see fiscal year 24 I'm assuming it goes from 937 to 862 due to enrollment is that because it's just a change of students the difference in the students

[00:22:29] from that year as what is projected is that why there's a decrease is that why that's forecasted yeah the very last figure there is projected so we don't have that final figure yet okay yeah because I just noticed it's it incrementally increases and all of a sudden the one that's projected there's a little bit of a dip and I just oh well we did have a lower number of our freshmen this year okay all right any questions yes yes Miss LaBelle could you tell me what the programs are that are actually covered in TJ I know their

[00:23:07] science and technology. What other programs do they have? Or is it just STEM? It is a full-time program. So students take all of their courses there, but it does, it is a specialized STEM program. Okay, so the governor's school is based on the STEM. I'm not a 100% expert on this, but I think the various different governor schools have a different emphasis. Yes, they do. I just wondered whether TJ had any other emphasis besides STEM. It's definitely a STEM school. Okay, thank you.

[00:23:47] We were just going to say it's a comprehensive school. So it has all the athletics, all their, so it's not like our academy where we send students just A or B day. It's a full school.

[00:24:04] Now, I was aware of that because I noticed that they had the athletic teams and the music and the band. I do know that governor's schools are awarded based on different types of curriculum. For example, we have STEM, but they also have some for languages, some for music, things like that.

[00:24:23] So I was asking if there was, because some schools can have more than one governor's accreditation is what I was looking at. So it's an important distinction. There are governor's STEM academies. For example, MATA is a governor's STEM academy. However, this is a regional academic year governor's school, which is a little bit differently in terms of their whole comprehensive approach as opposed to one segment of the school.

[00:24:51] So there are different categories of governor's school. The one TJ again represents the whole school versus just one program in the building. Okay thank you for that. Did you add anything to that? I was just going to clarify also in addition to the full year academic year at Governor's School there are the summer residential Governor's Schools and those are in a variety of academics but the arts as well as the World Language Academy.

[00:25:17] So those are summertime programs about three to four weeks. Thank you. I was aware of the summer programs. And so I would just, on the second bullet, the Virginia governor school programs were designed to assist divisions meet the needs of students whose learning levels are remarkably different from their age level peers.

[00:25:37] While many of our programs benefit that population, part of the benefit of our partnership with TJ is the provision of those programming for those students. So that is one important distinction between looking at different offerings that we have at LCPS versus what TJ provides.

[00:25:56] So that's an important component of this presentation. Do you have anything, Ms. King? Thank you. Yes, Ms. Tristram. I was just going to ask if you can remind me what the cost difference is between what we estimate our per pupil cost per year is at LCPS versus at TJ.

[00:26:17] And if that delta is close or large, we want to understand if that cost is really awash between both school and division, and it's just the transportation that we really need to focus on.

[00:26:33] And then, and sometimes with Dr. Ellis, we go through this at Performance Monitoring Committee, but we sometimes bring in folks, whether that's school staff and administration or students where we talk about outcomes or we focus in on a specific piece of the benefit basically to LCPS, the students and the families around opportunities like this, whether that's MATA or others, maybe there could be an opportunity, whether that's here in SBC or in the Performance monitoring committee to really understand at a deeper level the opportunity that we are

[00:27:09] affording students from our division at tj at least i have an interest in that but so those are two comments thank you um and just one of my last questions i think it was presented i think at one of our main school board meetings um would you happen to know the number of buses um from last year that transported students to tj versus this year it was presented at school board meeting i I thought it was eight currently, but then I think last year it was six or seven.

[00:27:46] And I'm assuming that I'm attributing that increase is, once again, due to an increase in cohort, possibly. But then, yeah, but then the projected number for 2025, the cost for the transportation looks lower.

[00:28:03] That's why I couldn't correlate between the number of buses versus the cost of transportation. Or maybe I got the number. We could get that. All right. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. All right. Any other questions, board members, about this item? All right.

[00:28:16] I have one. Yes. So just for this committee's information we there there is a time period where the school full school board is asked to commit to continuing our relationship with Thomas Jefferson this past fall the contract came to the full board but generally the board takes action sometime in May to communicate to Fairfax that we intend to continue our relationship with TJ for the following following school year.

[00:28:46] So in this case, 26-27. So just since this is an item, this will be funneled through F&O, the intention to sign the contract. And so it will be an information item actually following this meeting at the F&O meeting. And then it will come back to F&O as action before it's in the full board in May.

[00:29:04] So there will be time to discuss TGA further in the full board when it comes out in F&O, anticipated in May. Yeah, that would be really helpful. We can go into further details. That's great. all right we're gonna move on we will move on to our next agenda item that is Parkview School International Baccalaureate authorization timeline I will turn it over to Mr. Slevin to present thanks we are very excited to

[00:29:42] present this information item as you know we during the FY 26 budget development process we were supported in planning for an expansion of our IB program Parkview High School I'm really appreciative of Dr.

[00:29:58] Jefferson principal of Parkview High School to be here tonight knowing that the process to become designated as an IB school is an arduous one it's not something that happens overnight we wanted to give the committee and the public a quick update on what that process is going to look like and the importance of school leadership in that process is represented by Dr. Jefferson being at the table tonight so I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Clark and I'll have you introduce mr. Schaefer absolutely thank you and as mr. Slevin stated we're excited about this opportunity for Parkview high school and I also have with

[00:30:38] us this afternoon mr. Schaefer who is academic supervisor of academic programs so we are just as mr. Slevin kind of mentioned we're going to give you an overview of the IB authorization process from IBO our current tentative timeline specifically for Parkview High School and then lastly some current progress that we've made and some next steps in our journey so this is straight from the International Baccalaureate organization this is the overview of the

[00:31:10] authorization process so to kind of walk us through this it is a very rigorous journey that Parkview will be undertaking to become an Ivy World School as we also did with Heritage High School and Loudoun Valley this process ensures that the school meets the high standards and practices set by the IB organization so as you can see here we just to give you some context I should have put an arrow there but we are in the request for candidacy there that second box and in that we will be working on the application along with

[00:31:47] dr. Jefferson for submission and we will be paying that candidacy fee to get started the next phase there obviously is a decision on candidacy by the IB so they will look at that and decide if we're ready to move forward and then we will move into that candidate phase and that is the longest part of our journey that can take between a year to two years depending on progress we're making so during that candidacy phase we will hire that IB coordinator and then we'll work with the consultation process there which includes one visit to the

[00:32:27] school so IBO will assign a consultant to work directly with Parkview High School and mr. Schaefer and myself as well during during this phase we will work on curriculum development professional development so we'll send staff to have that professional development throughout that that year that would be next year during the 25 26 school year and then after that we'll have that IB consultant visit and then a verification visit to the school for that there'll be a lot of preparation to make sure that we've met all the

[00:33:06] necessary aspects of the IB DP that are in place for that visit and then lastly there is the authorization and that will be a report and a decision by that visiting team if they are recommending us for that full designation of IB so in just a second we're gonna kind of talk through what that looks like for Park View High School broken down by year so on the next slide you'll see here in the spring summer so currently we are working on that request for candidacy

[00:33:44] which is a letter from the school division stating that we are gonna have the finances to support this. We'll start that consultation process where they'll assign us that consultant. Mr. Schaefer and Dr. Jefferson will have the pleasure of going to head of school training to learn all about IV to be able to support that and lead that at Parkview. We are working on hiring that IV coordinator and then that IV coordinator will also go to training as well. So then in the 25-26 school year, that is when we'll be in the candidacy phase, we would

[00:34:20] open student opportunities for rising ninth graders to join Parkview High School we would do that IB DP professional development for teachers and then the IB DP curriculum development would happen during that school year that is all part of the process that we need to go through then in the 26 27 school year that will be the consultation phase we'll have that consultation visit we would be preparing students again we can't use that IB designation until we are fully authorized so we call it LCPS pre IB as we did for Heritage and Valley and that would be for ninth and tenth grade our

[00:34:59] ninth graders would be our out-of-zone students and our tenth graders would be those Parkview students that are already at Parkview we would be doing that request for authorization application and that comes with that verification visit and then we would be during that school year getting our authorization decision at that point and then in the 27 28 school year which brings us to our brand new building that is highly anticipated and we would have the 9th and 10th grade LCPS pre IB from out of zone coming in plus any interested

[00:35:37] students all receiving the ability to be ready to take those IB courses and we would have our as long as authorization goes as planned would have our IB courses available for 11th graders during that 27-28 school year and then obviously that next year that's not on here would be our first graduating class of diploma candidates from Parkview High School. Next I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Schaefer to talk about kind of where we're at and our next steps in our journey. Yeah so Dr. Jefferson and I are excited to be working

[00:36:14] with Ms. Clark and letting you know where we are now. So the position was posted earlier this year and the hiring process began last week with round one of interviews. Dr. Jefferson and I will be attending a training early next month on head of school.

[00:36:30] It's a virtual training, and we're working through the request for candidacy. The application has started, so we'll be getting those questions answered, uploading important documents, statements of support from LCPS, those sort of things, to get the ball rolling and to, again, jumpstart that consultant phase.

[00:36:53] The next step would be, again, finalizing the IB coordinator hiring and then that person would be training after July 1 and attend that training. I would be going to training with them as well for the IB coordinator role.

[00:37:10] The professional development plan, working with Dr. Jefferson to determine courses, curriculum development, how do we want this to look for park view itself. We have guides, obviously, of heritage in Loudoun Valley, but we want to make this a unique opportunity for Parkview and what's best for the students in the community there.

[00:37:32] And finally, like Ms. Clark said, we've got a planned out candidacy phase to be working through as well. Additionally, we also presented at the Parkview High School.

[00:37:49] They have a monthly staff meeting, faculty meeting in the morning. we've presented there about what is it's it was a high level overview what is IB how is it best for students what what's some of the IB philosophy and to get people thinking about that. Dr.

[00:38:10] Jefferson I don't want to put you on the spot but if you want to say anything I just want to wrap up and if he wants to say anything he can but we are as we said I'm excited about this opportunity and we know this is going to be a valuable addition to Parkview High School and to all of our students in Loudoun County but Dr. Jefferson did you want to say anything you should never give a principal microphone but I will start by saying thank you both to Mr. Slevey and Ms. Clark and Grant right here for work for working with us as we go through this process this has been a desire of mine as Mr. Estreffy knows for quite some time for Parkview I will tell you now Parkview is very excited about this both the new building and the opportunity to

[00:38:50] be an IB school so we are grateful we can't wait to continue to go through the process thank you so much it is exciting this is long overdue I mean I do have a I have a I have a question but I'm gonna turn it over to the committee members any questions or comments yes mr. strep thank you madam chair dr. Jefferson good to see you can see you as well Mr. Schaefer I wanted to just say how excited I was also to see this presentation and also just to have the community really

[00:39:25] understand the impact that this is going to have on Parkview especially aligned with the reconstruction of the Parkview High School I think it's really exciting that we're finally getting a program like IB and special programs in general more accessible to Eastern Loudoun I think that's something that has been a high priority of mine as well as the rest of the board from what I understand so I'm very excited happy to support this in any way look forward to future updates thank you any other questions so I know that it was said

[00:40:03] that it was going to open the new school would would be opening at a certain time frame my only thing my only question was or rather comment if the IB school IB coordinator visits or IB consultant visits the school do they visit the old school while it's in transition of trying to get open or how does that work absolutely so we did Grant and I had a meeting with IBO to talk about that because we said we're in a unique situation they will come and look at Parkview as it is but we can also show them the floor plans and all the

[00:40:42] upgrades that they're gonna have with the new building one of the things that always get schools during the visit is the exam storage you have to show them exactly where you're gonna store those exams it's very specific like qualifications to get that approved so I had questions about that and they said we could have a show them a place at the current school but then also show them on a floor plan where we plan to do it there is an evaluation cycle that occurs every five years so they will be back to evaluate that as well in the future but they said it shouldn't be a problem to do it at the current school

[00:41:19] thank you for that so excited I mean I really am excited this is overdue but it's especially when I hear a new program is falling under our committee and I've shared my thoughts with Mr. Slevin over and over again. I get excited, so I can't stress that enough.

[00:41:37] But, you know, that's the last of our agenda items for today's meeting. Any questions before we move on to concluding? Yes, yes, please. Please, yes, okay. It's going out.

[00:41:59] Did you want me to talk on this or to? So we're prepared, but if you wanted to open it up, you want to turn it over to staff? Yes, yes, please. Okay, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Slevin in regards to the survey. Sorry, I just skipped over the whole item.

[00:42:16] That's okay. Thank you. I would just, I just want to, I don't know if Dr. Jefferson left, but he's still here. One of the things that stood out to me in the past few months and year going to Parkview at all the community information nights for thinking about the plans and the programming in the building, that community really wants a school to retain and attract students across LCPS.

[00:42:39] And I think that under Dr. Jefferson's leadership and partnership with IBO and the staff, it's really going to be a special thing that happens when we open those doors. in 2027. In that same vein, community input is really important. And so we talked a few meetings ago about the potential of developing a survey to inform this committee and the board on next steps when it comes to special programs and pathways, particularly around the special programs and academies as well as CTE. So based on the input from the committee, based on what we've done in the past, Ms. Clark has kind of led the charge to develop

[00:43:16] a draft survey that we're hoping to get a little bit of feedback on before we send it out and this Clark could talk a little bit about the timeline in terms of when we're thinking we may share this with the community and when we would get results back so Ms. Clark are you ready yes thank you Mr. Slevin so I'll walk us through our draft survey here so section 1 is the introduction and the purpose of this survey is to explore opportunities to expand or introduce new special programs and academies. As a reminder, we sent this out back in a survey, not this survey, but

[00:43:54] a survey back in 2022. So it's been three years and we're looking to update that. We are seeking input from parents and guardians to better serve our students. The survey begins by asking which high school their child currently attends or would attend. Section two is talking about existing programs. So we then transitioned to asking respondents to rate their level of interest in expanding existing programs. These programs include AOS, AT, ACCESS, DLI, HAMSci, IB,

[00:44:28] and JROTC and MATA. For each of those programs, we were anticipating that if they rate it as moderately or very interested, then additional details would drop down for them to select.

[00:44:47] So for example, if they're interested in DLI, then it would show some language choices that they could select from. If they aren't interested, it would not show those options. Section 3 would be potential new courses, programs, or academies.

[00:45:04] survey explores interest in new potential courses, programs, or academies based on top career clusters selected by our secondary students. So we selected these from School Links. These were the top five that our secondary students had said they were interested in. So that is health sciences, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, arts, audio, video, technology, and communications, business, management, and administration, and lastly, law, public safety, corrections, and security.

[00:45:36] Respondents would be able to rate their interest in these categories and provide further details on specific subcategories. So, for example, I know dental, so that would be an option if they said health sciences, it would drop down, and they would be able to select some more specifics.

[00:45:53] Section 4 are other areas of interest. So the survey would seek input on those areas identified by LCPS based on regional needs. These areas include agriculture, food and natural resources, aviation, and energy.

[00:46:10] Again, respondents would also, another question in that section would be for respondents to rank their top three factors influencing their decision to potentially enroll their child in a special program or academy.

[00:46:25] So would location, program reputation, career college preparation, or availability of transportation, or lastly, career interest. What would be their top three factors that are important to them?

[00:46:42] And then finally, the survey provides an opportunity for respondents to suggest other areas of interest that were not listed. So maybe something's there that they know their child is interested in, they would have the opportunity to add that for us to collect that data.

[00:47:01] And the research office will be supporting us with this and trying to think if there's any other information that we should share with you at this time regarding that. Other than we, you know, really tried to model this so that it wasn't showing everything.

[00:47:22] It was only showing when respondents were interested so that the survey isn't too cumbersome for families. I'm happy to answer any questions or take any feedback at this time. Thank you so much. Survey is awesome. Hey, members of the committee, you got any questions about the survey?

[00:47:42] Yes, yes, Mr. Schreffer. Madam Chair, just a quick question. I love the survey, by the way. One is, just to confirm, would this go to families with students in middle school, or is that across the board? And then the second question is, what was my second question?

[00:48:00] Second question is, is there a previous survey that is similar to this one that we could be able to compare to for previous years, or is this completely new? We do have a survey that was completed in 2022.

[00:48:17] We did take a, we did use that as some inspiration, but it is a different format that we're approaching. sure yeah so we did use that as kind of a groundwork to build off of but now that we have programs we wanted to make sure we included some questions regarding expansion that was not in the initial survey so I think just as we've grown we've kind of grown and how we want the survey to look to answer your first part of your question it would go to all families elementary middle high so it would be all parents and guardians we really do have a lot of

[00:48:54] student data already from school links so that's again where we pulled that one question and then I forgot Mr. Slevin had asked me to potentially talk about timeline and I know the research office has been trying to do some intentional work about communication for surveys to really get families to respond because I think sometimes we struggle with family response rates and I'm probably speaking out of turn here but I'll try my best so with that my understanding is they really do try to tie it with a communication plan or an event that is

[00:49:30] occurring so there's kind of two two kind of timelines I know that maybe we want to get this information sooner rather than later and if that's the case then I think we would want to do this before it gets too late in the school year because people start getting ready for summer and maybe aren't paying attention to their emails as much the other option would be to maybe delay and do this more in a September timeframe when we're back we do do two special program fairs that we could go out and my understanding is there's some maybe some new technology with a QR code that we could put up they could scan it if

[00:50:09] they've already completed it it wouldn't allow them to complete it again but it could be a push for us to really push out to all these families interested in special programs so there's kind of two timelines obviously we would want this information to be able to help us with budget decisions in the fall so just wanted to put those two options and I don't know if mr. Slavin wants to speak to one of those but yes Miss LeBell one of the questions that I have I am

[00:50:46] excited about programs I love the survey but the last page you asked them to give given what would most influence your decision. I had a question about the career/college preparation.

[00:51:02] When we look at the programs that we're offering, are we offering an opportunity to get a certificate in an area if that's what they're interested? I know that we often say you have to take two sequential CTE classes.

[00:51:18] Is that part of this or not? What would somebody who's not going to college gain out of this would be my question, I guess. My answer would be, it would depend on the course pathway or the program. So, for example, when we were developing our Health and Medical Science Academy, a large part of the conversation that we were having related to career development was what credentials would be useful to our local Health and Medical Science industry. That was the main topic of our roundtable. And so, in that particular case, the emphasis is on career

[00:51:55] When I think about our early planning for the Global Linguistic Studies Academy, that is leaning in on our DE, dual enrollment opportunities, as well as the immersion in the language, getting that skill, potentially a seal of biliteracy, really leading into post-secondary opportunities with that particular program.

[00:52:20] This survey benefits us in a number of ways, I think. One is thinking about these specialized programs that we're developing, but also with our CTE five-year plan. Dr. Grubbs is in the audience here. He had a big seat at the table in developing this survey, thinking about not only special programs, but what courses could possibly develop.

[00:52:43] What do we need to be thinking differently about what's happening at MATA, for example, or at the academies of Loudoun? And so that will be impacted as well when it comes to career or college orientation. And if that becomes, if that's like the number one motive, the reason why we're asking this question is when we're making recommendations to the board, what does staff want to put the most weight on?

[00:53:06] And then when the board makes those decisions too, you know, if career and college preparation is more important than location, like they just want this opportunity, whether it's on this side of the county or not, then maybe we could de-emphasize location and really focus on the high interest. So it will just help us with decision making.

[00:53:24] okay thank you thank you and then what are the next steps for the survey like does is there it does have to go through a process before or is it ready to go so we likely will do some tweaking we still have time to give some feedback but it would be it would be an operations a staff decision to move forward with it and we would come back but we did want you all to give some input just to make sure it would be useful to you as we're making recommendations to the committee awesome yes Mr. Strick sorry Madam Chair just last question so first I was excited to see dual language immersion there because I know that we're really trying to

[00:54:01] think deeply about how we would expand dual language immersion seeing the interest in the community for that. I also want to just kind of make a note around there are some of these some of these programs or pathways some families may not be as exposed to like IB program for example and so if it's in a survey and says IB program and you list out for example the different programs within IB, that might not register to folks that don't already have a student in middle school, for example.

[00:54:37] And so that might, you know, having all, just again, trade-offs, right? Having all of this in one survey, depending on the type of family, if they have elementary school kids or they have high school kids, will also affect the data that you get, right?

[00:54:55] because the interest will be more focused on maybe what you have for elementary versus the high school. And then in terms of the timing for this, I've had the opportunity to listen to our special programs presentations at schools.

[00:55:12] I randomly met Miss Clark there during one of my school visits, and I think we do a great job. And I know Mr. Schaefer's still here. I don't know if he's still here or not, but yeah, there he is. does a wonderful job in their presentations and getting our families and our students excited about special programs so kind of it might be worthwhile tying this into that season but just a thought thank you mr streffi um i guess that's our last um information item for

[00:55:46] this meeting any new business before we conclude okay great awesome so our next meeting is scheduled for may 6th same time same room uh so if there's any if there's no further business i entertain a Motion to adjourn the meeting.

[00:56:02] All those in favor of adjourning say aye. - Aye. - Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

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