Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Public Schools, Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) Meeting, Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Date: Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Place: LCPS Administration Building / School Board Room, Ashburn, Virginia
Length: 1h 37m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1082037450?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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[00:06:24] everybody. It is a couple minutes after six, so we will go ahead and get started. We do not have a presentation this evening. Welcome to our last SEAC business meeting of the year. Thank you all for coming out and joining us. We are so excited to have you. You'll note on the screen we have a QR code. If you wouldn't mind just scanning it with your phone and filling out the little form, let us know that you're here. And if you'd like to get added to our distribution lists

[00:07:00] so that you can get more notice about upcoming meetings, we would love to have you at any of our meetings. All meetings for SEAC are open to the public. Also, before I get started, I wanted to let you know that there are two flyers on the back table from the ARC for events that they have coming up in the next week or so. So please check those out. Real quick, this is our role of SEAC and the virgin year regulations. We are governed by these regulations to advise the

[00:07:39] local school division of needs and the education of students with disabilities. We participate in the development of priorities and strategies for meeting our student, the needs of our students with disabilities. We submit periodic reports and recommendations.

[00:07:54] We assist the local school division in interpreting plans to the community. We review the policies and procedures for the provision of special education and related services prior to submission to the local school board. And then we participate in the review of the local school division's annual plan, which is on the agenda for tonight as well.

[00:08:14] Real quick, I'll just go through introductions. My name is Liz Crotty. I am the current SEAC chair. Catherine Moran is our SEAC vice chair of planning, and she is not able to be with us tonight, but she is online. Carla Sola, right here, is our vice chair of membership.

[00:08:33] Erin Rozelle Poe is our vice chair of communications. Katie Rosenbrook is our SEAC secretary, and she was also not able to join us this evening. Sharon Trofe is our SEAC past chair. And then our Director of Special Education, who is our SEAC liaison, is Dr. Paige Carter.

[00:08:50] And Carrie LaBelle, over here, is our school board liaison. And our alternate is Melinda Mansfield. So real quick, we've got some virtual attendees. So is there a motion to admit our virtual attendees this evening?

[00:09:09] Yes. Thank you. All right, we have a second from Tom. And so, all in favor of admitting our virtual attendees, please raise your hand, say aye. All opposed, nay.

[00:09:25] Any abstentions? All right, we have Katherine Moran and Sharon Trofe, and I believe there might be a couple others who will be joining us shortly. I sent out the April meeting minutes. Did everyone have a chance to review them?

[00:09:43] Were there any changes that need to be reflected in the minutes? All right. none, we will go ahead and admit those minutes. Next, we have public comment. This feels like it's coming very quickly because normally we have our presentation now. But would, Craig, would you be able to look back there and see if there were any, if anyone signed up for public comment this evening? We do have one. Okay. Catherine McAllister. Yes, you can come up here and speak at the mic. And real quick, SEAC uses our public comment to inform our work,

[00:10:19] to advise the school board. We ask that people focus on system-wide issues rather than individual concerns or specific situations. Please do not use student or staff names. Verbal comment may be given, but please give us a copy of your comments afterwards so that we can make sure that those are included in our annual report. And remarks are limited to three minutes. Thank you. Okay, your special education teachers are struggling. Every year, the implicit message from upper admin

[00:10:54] is do more with less and this year we are not okay. Every year as expectations change or increase we continue to be flexible. We restructure how we do things to meet student needs and these increased expectations because we care but it has become untenable. Being a special ed teacher is like running a marathon at a sprinter's pace. It's unsustainable. It doesn't help that we were told by a director there there is no such thing as work-life balance in special education.

[00:11:22] We are not okay. We're overworked, overwhelmed, and burnt out. It's not about caseload sizes. It's about all the other things we're tasked to do. It's impossible to name all our responsibilities, but I want to highlight just a few. I have 12 on my caseload, and I teach three different English classes.

[00:11:39] In one of my self-contained classes, I collect data on over 30 academic goals. That doesn't even include behavior goals. To write a good IEP, it takes me several hours of uninterrupted time, and I've been doing this for over 10 years. Additionally, I have almost 30 other students I teach, but who are not on my caseload.

[00:11:57] I'm responsible for providing their case manager with information about the student's present level of performance for the development of their IEP. This includes informal and formal assessments, analysis of data, and putting all the information together with goals, suggestions, and baseline data.

[00:12:12] This process can take hours for each student, more hours than we have planning each day. Each time a new IEP has been signed, we need to create a new at-a-glance document. Update the whole school data collection spreadsheet, update behavior goals, notify teachers and other team members of the new IEP, ensure schedule changes are made if any, follow up with family about any discussion items, update the testing accommodation spreadsheet, inform teachers if there's a new BIP, update the parent contact log, and ensure that upcoming lessons provide what has been set out in the IEP.

[00:12:47] I haven't yet included the time it takes to conduct a functional behavior analysis or develop a behavior intervention plan. We are not okay. In my self-contained English, I teach the regular sixth grade curriculum at a slower pace every day, and the following day we work on reading interventions. My students' comprehension ranges from primer to fifth grade. I modify and adapt lessons to include audio, visuals, and simpler vocabulary. All of this takes time. I have students who struggle with decoding and encoding, but who are great with reading comprehension. I also have students who are great with decoding and encoding but struggle with comprehension.

[00:13:25] They both have different interventions and running two interventions with fidelity during one class block is challenging and it limits the potential progress of your children. They essentially only get half of what they could be getting if it were possible to schedule students according to their deficits. We are not okay. The concerns I've outlined in this brief time are not new. Your special ed teachers who serve the kids in the highest needs in the county day after day are

[00:13:49] overworked yet continually asked to do more. We are not okay. Thank you. All right and next we will go into our update from Dr. Paige Carter about the Office of Special Education. Good evening everybody. We are indeed serving 10,822 students across the division so just as predicted we're

[00:14:25] almost up 200 more students this month than we were last month. We are and eligibilities are happening every single day. That is a number that I give you every month, so I wanted to do that again. As a matter of update, the work on the transition center has officially begun. The picture on the slide there is the team who visited the site, which is the old Arcola Elementary School on Marwood and we're we're excited to begin the dreaming phase the planning phase the what do we

[00:15:05] need for the transition center so it is exciting work we meet every single week and one person in the picture Joanne I want to give her a shout out she is our project planner who is keeping us on task. And we're just, we're really excited to get that going. I wanted to celebrate two feet meets that happened, one at Loudoun Valley High School and one at Parkview. And both were highly successful and happy kids and lots of really cool activities. And it was wonderful to see all of our case managers and teachers and littles come together. And I want to give a shout out to all the student

[00:15:44] volunteers as well there were folks from just about every every school that I could that I could think of in both locations bringing um coming and peers coming with their with their friends with disabilities to this event and it was just a really really great time I know some of you guys were there um at least for one of them I want to celebrate the hope dance again I'm still getting a lot of feedback from folks about how successful that was and that there was representation across the division more than ever before.

[00:16:13] I know we talked about that a little bit last month, but the information is still coming in. So I just wanted to bring it up again. And also the upcoming SEAC awards is a highlight for us. And supervisors have begun to mention it to me. We've all got it on our calendar and we're super excited.

[00:16:29] And another shout out for Kristen Lovell, who is going to be doing a lot of the clerical work around preparing all of those all of the programs and the certificates and awards so we're she is excited to begin that work and has a workstation ready to go so I want you guys to know that that that is also underway all right so while the school year is winding down we are winding up in OSE and summer services are on our mind both for extended what what is known as the ESY

[00:17:05] sites but also for summer support for students with disabilities who are in summer school and principals are sending us their needs for that and we're allocating staff for all of the students who are receiving services this summer whether it is in the traditional ESY format or an alternate alternate format some students are receiving reading tutoring others are attending summer school and need support separate from the ESY traditional sites so we've got a lot going on this summer. We're also planning professional development both summer offerings and the fall

[00:17:40] conference coming up and teachers and TAs everyone is going to be part of the planning for professional development this this coming year. We are still working on a date for our in-person TA training but we are going to make that happen this year. Also budget planning for FY27 that sounds like a space odyssey to me. But we are planning, beginning to plan for the budget. So SEAC, I know you guys have a lot of budget items on your mind. So members and community members that may be listening

[00:18:15] online, if you have ideas for budget asks, it is not too early to give them to me now. Because we start that work in July. It used to start in October, but we're getting started earlier this year so that we can be even more thoughtful. And then we have big co-teaching initiatives. We are partnering with our English language colleagues. And we have, I observed today at one of our middle schools, a co-teaching triad where there was a special educator and an EL teacher and the general education teacher working together for our students who are duly identified. And it was a beautiful

[00:18:53] reading activity. The students had bookmarks with essential questions on it. They were interacting and asking each other questions. They were divided out by language level, and there were mixed groups happening all at the same time. It was quite an orchestration, and all three of those teachers planned and worked together to make that orchestra, if you will, come together, and it was a beautiful thing to see and we're also gearing up for MANT our de-escalation and physical support to students

[00:19:28] who are in crisis that training is upgraded and we are now in the 3.0 version and we are rolling out training and training more and more instructors this year than we ever have before the office of procedural support is leading that effort and Tedra is going to speak a little bit more about it. Oh the most important thing I need to tell you about sorry. There has been a change in language to the annual plan that from based on your feedback and feedback that we've had from the community at large but I want to I've highlighted the changes and this is a summary but

[00:20:05] it's important to know that we are going to offer in addition to consultative services direct instructional services when those are appropriate related services not just speech and of course transition planning services and consultative services have been in the annual plan in recent years spelled out just that way but it's important to know that this is contingent on the availability of proportionate set-aside funds when that money is gone it's gone but and it's also contingent on appropriately qualified staff whether that's our staff in lcps to provide those services or

[00:20:40] contracted staff that we can find in the community and this is for children who are parentally placed so either homeschooled or placed in a private school but that is afforded through our annual plan every year and that was the major change since we have last spoken okay and that's it does anyone have any questions for me all right thank you and now miss tedra richardson i'm very excited to hear about that triad with the co-tip teaching though that's cool good evening everyone

[00:21:18] thank you for joining us i do have some updates from across the department of student services So the Office of Student Mental Health Services, our director, Jennifer Evans, participates in the Loudoun County Government Opioid Abatement Task Force, and we are excited about this work because it directly aligns with the opening of our LCPS Recovery School, which will be hosted at the North Star School starting in August.

[00:21:47] The Office of Student Services, today is School Nurse Day. We're celebrating them the entire week. So if you are in and out of our school buildings this week, please try to stop by and thank your school nurse for all that they do. The Office of Diagnostic and Prevention Services, as of the end of April 2025, we have supported about 17% of our students with intervention plans, whether it's literacy, math, behavior, or mental health.

[00:22:17] As Dr. Carter mentioned, the Office of Procedural Support is leading the division in the training in MANT 3.0, and of course, happy Teacher Appreciation Week. Here's the exciting part, right? So we held a, bless you, we held a Transition Center Roundtable yesterday in this very space.

[00:22:40] It was amazing. As you can see, these are the community partners that were present. we had 57 participants in our roundtable. We had elected officials. Our board of supervisors were present. Of course, our school board members. We had teachers. We had parents. We had DARS. We had representatives from VCU transition. We had WWRC present. It was a beautiful experience.

[00:23:12] We had three structured activities for our participants to give us feedback. We also had representation from SEAC. Our executive leadership was present at SEAC, from SEAC. We had three sort of sessions. So the first was give us the pluses, the minuses, and maybe some areas of growth on our proposed goals for our transition center, okay? The second sort of opportunity that we had at tabletops was give us some things that we haven't thought about, okay? And then the third

[00:23:49] activity is we had folks to organize by either representatives of LCPS. You could have been a community member or an elected official. What might your ask be from your particular role and what might your needs be in your particular role? The design team will be jumping into that feedback on Monday afternoon and we will certainly continue to keep SEAC posted. But an absolute thank you to all of you for pushing this vision and this project forward. I know that it is something that SEAC has been talking about for a long time. The chair of our school board,

[00:24:29] Mrs. Mansfield, was our closing speaker and she shared that SEAC has been talking about a Transition Center for seven years. It is happening. So thank you. Thank you so much, Tedra. All right. And now I would like to welcome Mr. Shaheed Muhammad, who is our LCPS Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Accessibility, who's here to, he's going to come and participate with us here in SEAC and give us a little overview of what his office is up to.

[00:25:07] All right. Good evening, everybody. Wow, I don't like that picture at all. Sorry, I can give you a new one. It's okay. Just messing with you. So I'm happy to be here and just to really talk about the ways that I see our division of DEIA supporting and participating in the work of this committee and the overlap that we also have with the work within the division.

[00:25:38] A little bit about me, this is a little over two years here in Loudoun County. Prior to that, I was a middle school principal for seven years and an elementary school principal for ten years in Montgomery County, Maryland. And I just have to say that the work of supporting students with disabilities and families is really, really near to my heart.

[00:26:02] And I just find it to be just incredibly rewarding. On a personal note, I'm a father of a son with autism, he's 26, and, excuse me, I get choked up because I'm in such awe of his superpowers every single day, and he'll be with me hopefully forever, and that's why the work of the Transition Center and a lot of the other things that this committee spearheads is so very important, and so just wanted to share that.

[00:26:35] With the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Accessibility, and hopefully I'll get a chance to share more in-depth things, we do a lot with a very small group of people, but mostly it is to address inequities and barriers to student success and how that shows itself in our school environments, making sure that we are creating academically thriving and social-emotionally thriving environments that center on affirming, belonging, and inclusiveness

[00:27:14] for each and every student within a division. And that's a tall task, but we are very thankful to the support of our superintendent, Dr. Aaron Spence, who we are in the office of the superintendent, as well as our school board members in doing this work.

[00:27:33] So how do we accomplish this? We collaborate and provide guidance, consultation with school administrators, school staff, and equity leads. We have equity leads in all of our buildings.

[00:27:50] We work to amplify student voice and student leadership as early as the elementary grades. Because we know that when students start to really share and their voices are heard, we're able to really strengthen the learning environments that they work in every single day, alongside staff and their parents.

[00:28:15] We provide lots of professional learning for staff around access, opportunity, cultural awareness. There's just a myriad of different topics. And fostering the family engagement and supports for our students and our families so that they experience that feeling of belongingness.

[00:28:41] Something we also work heavily on is the mitigation of racial slurs and hate speech in the schools. And that is a big topic, as you probably are aware of right now, that's going on in our communities. So highlighting celebrations and acknowledgments and cultural awareness, as I said, is key.

[00:29:02] Supporting student access to the curriculum, to advanced pathways, are things we also provide consultation and support with. And supporting student and staff with equitable access to materials, resources, equipment, are also things that we work with schools on.

[00:29:28] So, just wanted to give a brief overview of who I am, the work that we do in DEIA. I'm sure you can see some of the overlap, and looking forward to, if you'll have me, supporting the SEAC committee. Special shout out to, of course, you know, the SEAC leadership and the liaisons, and I want to just echo what you said, Ms. Richardson, about the meeting yesterday.

[00:29:55] It really was inspirational and just something that I think is going to be just a game changer um for loudon county public schools in the support of uh of our of our students so thank you thank you so much mr muhammad and welcome to our community we are so happy to have you here with

[00:30:21] us all right next we have our update from our school board liaison miss carrie labelle i need to echo um tedra and muhammad's comments about yesterday's transition uh conference that we had it was incredible. There were so many people there, many of them that I have worked with in

[00:30:59] the past that are now working in other of our outside adult services like Did Lake and WWRC and all of those other places. And to know them and know that I have a direct connection with them and they are more than willing to work with us it was really really incredible. Some of the other things that I've done since the last time we've gotten together I actually got to go out and visit a few schools now that I'm walking again so that's a nice thing and I did get to go to Ken

[00:31:37] Culbert and I've got to tell you that they had the most fabulous behavioral program there. I see heads nodding yeah um for some of our uh more needy students and i was totally impressed with that one so if any of you ever have a chance to go and look at that do take that moment to do so um i was thrilled to hear about the the special ed programs that we had for our students for athletics um and i'm getting lots of notes from people talking about it so that's another good

[00:32:13] thing that's going on but i would like if i may dr richardson the tour that you took over at our new transition center could you tell us a little bit about maybe the programs that were going to be there i know i saw some the programs were considering and sort of what like the buildings like and what mr lewis said about the internal footprint if that that would be all right i kept listening for that yesterday and today, and I thought, wait, wait. Yeah, we didn't so much yesterday during the roundtable focus on the actual space, but Ms. LaBelle, thank you for

[00:32:52] the opportunity to talk about it. So if you could envision an older elementary school with a very sort of basic kind of layout, right? You walk in through the front door, huge multi-purpose room space with a stage. We felt that that is something that could definitely stay in that space. Dr.

[00:33:12] Carter and the team that went out to visit and I, we really talked about we could host conferences there and our students could be the hospitality staff, getting it ready, you know, helping us to navigate the conferences there. So special ed supervisors, you can anticipate that most of your Meetings will be held there moving forward once everything is up and running.

[00:33:35] Then you walk down the hallway. So let's go back down the hallway to the back classrooms. The classrooms are huge. There's about four classroom spaces that are 1,150 square feet. They all have bathrooms built in.

[00:33:52] Then sort of as you walk down that hallway, The classrooms on the right hand back side are about 750 square feet. Still very nice sized classrooms. They all have bathrooms. So sort of in that middle section, right?

[00:34:09] So you're kind of making a square. So we've walked down the hallway, we've walked the back hallway, coming up the side. The classrooms here are about 750 square feet. But in the middle of the building is this beautiful, which was probably like a media center.

[00:34:24] It's open on both sides, and it has some conference or office spaces there. But then there are two really large spaces, which open up to about another four classrooms that are about 1,000 square feet.

[00:34:40] So we're thinking about independent living labs, HVAC, and cosmetology, and auto mechanics, and maker spaces. The kitchen is-- there's a hallway between the multipurpose room and then the actual kitchen.

[00:34:58] Now, that would not be the functional kitchen for our students, because that's where they have to get breakfast and lunch. So we'll be building an industrial-sized kitchen for our students. The other amazing thing about the space is that there are courtyards that are made-- they're bricked in-- that are made for about every three classrooms page right every three to four classrooms so there's beautiful outside spaces there is a playground and it has a beautiful canopy over it I don't think that we would need to keep that maybe we'll see definitely should

[00:35:34] keep the canopy though right yes and then there's a smaller space that has a canopy area lots of land for us to have a greenhouse so our kids can do horticulture you know but our training team and certainly our engineers and our architects which will be meeting with them on Friday we need to dream beyond the spaces that we saw okay so I just because I've explained the layout don't think that that's what the final product is going to be right so we do have it has a lot of land I don't recall how much land is with it maybe 15 acres

[00:36:13] around there maybe and so we will need to work with the architects build out our construction plan and then go back to the Board of Supervisors to let them know so not only are we going to keep the blueprint but here's how we're going to expand the parking lot currently has the capacity to host 155 cars so of course the more we build out programs we need to make sure that we have adequate parking space. So this is going to be a huge project, but how exciting. But the great thing

[00:36:48] is that we're starting off with really solid bones. And the setting is very beautiful. There's lots of trees and green spaces. So it's very, very nice. Thank you, Ms. LaBelle, for the opportunity to share. Thank you for sharing with us. I was looking forward to that. Thank you. That's really about all I have to share I'm looking forward to all of our end of the year celebrations that are coming up hope to be at all of them and if you have any questions or comments or anything you

[00:37:17] want me to share with the board don't hesitate to let me know okay thank you thank you so much Carrie and now we will move into our SEAC chair report and Carla would you like to give us our membership update sorry i'm making her be secretary tonight as well so juggling's fun

[00:37:46] uh sorry we currently have 21 voting members of of SIAC um that number uh changes um throughout the year as people roll on and roll off so we are very much encouraging individuals who are interested in becoming voting members, to send in an application to the vice chair for membership, who after this evening will be Tom Ketchum.

[00:38:21] I don't have the number in front of me. I believe it was 80, PTA, PTA. 79 or 80. We might have lost one, so it actually might be 79. Right. Again, it's the end of the year, so please, if you're a current PTA, PTA, PTO rep, you know, be thinking about whether you're going to continue in that capacity for your school community or letting your PTA know so that they can first thing in September let us know so that we can get them on board.

[00:39:01] Yeah, you can reach out to your school administration, your PTA, PTO, let them know if you want to be in this role. We'll be sending out emails as well just to confirm that, you know, you would like to stay in this role and so we can start getting this updated because I think this is going to be the year coming where we're going to get every single school covered.

[00:39:22] We do have a few people of our SEAC members who have shared that they will not be returning to us next year, so we will have open positions. So please do send in your applications. we would love to have you join us. We work very hard, but we're a good group and we get a lot of stuff done. So, you know, come and join us. It'll be fun. Next, our SEAC awards. That's basically like 99% of our attention now is on SEAC awards and they should be coming out any day now. We are

[00:40:00] really close. Kim's back there probably checking names as we speak and making sure that I didn't make any typos. But yes, so that is coming up. You will see additional emails from us probably in the coming days with very specific requests of what we are looking for, along with how you can volunteer, especially our SEAC members, to sign up for the awards ceremony. I really encourage

[00:40:32] everyone to come. It is an incredible ceremony. It highlights the absolute best, most wonderful things that are going on in our county, and it's truly, it's so inspirational. So please come and join us. It's going to be at Loudoun County High School this year at 6 30 p.m. And look in your emails and social media and all those things in the coming days to see the announcement, And then if you see people on that list that you know, please help us celebrate them and congratulate them

[00:41:09] and let them know how incredible it is because truly these people, we know how hard our educators and our students are working and that it is often work that goes very much unthanked and unappreciated.

[00:41:25] And so any opportunity we get to really celebrate these great things, we need to to take and and and celebrate them so also our SIAC survey will be going out imminently hopefully we are also working on that so that will be hitting inboxes soon and it's not a long survey it goes pretty quick so I mean I think most people took about like five minutes five to seven minutes

[00:41:59] last year to complete it. The longest part it takes is the open questions where you control how long that takes. If you want to write a lot of feedback to us, we welcome it, but that's your choice. You can also get through the survey pretty quickly, so don't see that and be like, "Oh my God, it's another 15-minute survey." It really isn't. If you would like to just give us quick, speedy feedback, you can. If you'd like to really take your time with it you can please fill it out one per student just so that we can really get an idea of you know if you have multiple kids who have disabilities what

[00:42:36] the experience is like for each one now I will caution you the website forces you to you have to use a different browser it won't let you complete the survey again in the exact same browser so you could complete it one on your laptop one one on your phone, or use a different one in Chrome, one in Safari, that's how you're able to do multiple versions of the survey, otherwise it will have a problem with that.

[00:43:02] So please look out for that. Please complete it. This SEAC survey is so important. It really does help inform our work as a SEAC. We look at it very carefully. We have someone new who's going to be analyzing the data this year that we're very excited to partner with.

[00:43:19] So please help us with this work so that we can make sure that we are focusing and prioritizing the right issues. And also, before we get into our reports and updates, I just want to thank you all so much.

[00:43:35] Like, this is my last meeting as SEAC chair, but it's just been the most incredibly rewarding experience working with all of you, all of our SEAC members who give up so many nights and evenings and daytimes and do so much work.

[00:43:55] It's incredible. It makes such a difference. We have such a great group of people. Our SEAC representatives who are then taking the information and making sure it gets out to our schools. That is also so incredibly appreciated. And our LCPS staff, who is just a treasure to work with, who also give up their nights to spend time with us, which you all work very long days and we know how hard you guys are working and the fact that you show up and then help advance our work in all the ways,

[00:44:34] in all of what you do is just partnering with everyone has just been so meaningful to me. I have always believed that collaboration is important, but I don't think I ever experienced how impactful it truly could be when you have a group of superstars who are surrounding you who all believe in the same mission and really are willing to tackle these very challenging problems.

[00:45:06] You know, nothing we work on in SEAC is a quick and easy fix, almost ever. And yet you guys are here working with us, working with all of our SEAC members so hard. and it's just, it's been so meaningful to me to have this experience and I thank all of you for your contributions to all of our community members who reach out, who share their personal stories with us and are doing the work to help us make things better for all of our students.

[00:45:37] Thank you all so much. It's truly been a pleasure. And with that, we'll move into our report section. If you have not had an opportunity to sign in, please go ahead and do so.

[00:45:58] We are gonna do some updates quickly. Alicia, do you wanna give us the update? Do you have an update for literacy and math? All right, probably by the time we get a mic to you, you'll have it up.

[00:46:16] But we have one more meeting left, which is May 15th, so next week, next Thursday at 9:30 a.m. So you can add that to your calendars as well while we're waiting. no no this is that that that is um virtual so at our last session we were talking about the use of

[00:46:50] the dra within specific teams and whether or not it should be used or can be used or how to use it so feel free to reach out if you have questions about that we are not having our work session the end of the year work session we're moving it to the beginning of the year so we can talk about the VLA curriculum for the more severe disabilities.

[00:47:16] Yes, I think we're going to the first work session of the year is going to be on math. And since we just adopted a new math curriculum, this will give everyone time to wrap their heads around our new curriculum.

[00:47:34] And I know that Kim is going to have a phenomenal presentation for us in the first quarter. So if you would like to come and learn more about what's going on there, please join us. Our work sessions are generally held during the day in person because we are often utilizing our LCPS staff. All right. And next we've got meaningful.

[00:48:02] So with meaningful inclusion, we had a work session on the 28th to talk about adapted PE. I actually have a handout on that. If anybody would like to review that, that's going to be a topic that we're going to be discussing a lot more this coming year but we got some nice feedback and a presentation from LCPS staff on kind of the current services where that's at and where there are some

[00:48:33] challenges and areas for improvement you want to okay so equity we had a very exciting meeting last week and we are going to ask the school board equity was originally set up as an ad hoc committee some years ago in 2019 that charter hasn't been updated since 2021 and so we reviewed sort of a reason to update that charter and are proposing to the school board that the equity committee be

[00:49:09] transitioned into a permanent committee of a different type and that may be as an advisory or standing committee or one of those other ones that are allowed under policy so we will wait for the school board to sort of give us some guidance going forward but much like SIAC and some of the other advisories there's a lot more work to do in working with mr. Muhammad and his office and in supporting our both our staff and our students across the board with those issues GIAC you hopefully all received an email that next week on the 15th we're

[00:49:45] going to have a joint session and have invited all the members of SEAC. We're going to have a outside speaker that's going to come in and talk about twice exceptional students and all the challenges around that. I think it's probably most of you know all four of my children were identified as 2E and that presents all the wonderful challenges of SPED and gifted which is more than just twice as many challenges. So I would encourage you and ask you to attend that next week and that'll be here in this room on the 15th thanks all right policy subcommittee do you

[00:50:23] guys have an update you want to give outside of our policies which are coming all right well we'll skip that we do have a meeting scheduled for monday may 19th at 6 30 p.m currently so we'll see right now we're in a holding pattern on policies as just so that everyone is aware um you know typically we don't meet again in June. This is our last meeting, and so our next meeting where we'll be voting on policies will be our September meeting. All right, transition. Do you guys have

[00:50:59] an update you'd like to give, Shanaz? So for the fourth time, I will bring up that transition roundtable. Liz and I also had an opportunity to attend, and I think on behalf of all of us here, We want to really thank each and everybody who is involved in hearing us and putting together a very meaningful experience for all of us.

[00:51:38] I mean, the discussions we had, what came out of there, we left that feeling like there is a vision besides what was in our heads, you know, and that everybody else is having the same vision now. I cannot thank everybody I mean from our school board members to all LCPS staff our facilities everybody who was involved in these last few months and putting this together I'm normally not a very emotional person but I think between yesterday and today I've teared up three times with now Tedra explaining the whole setting and my son went to Arcola I can vision everything you

[00:52:17] know so I think we're going to have a really great year next year I think I'm looking forward to us just putting this all together and working together really so the other thing I wanted to just give an update where we are currently with project search we do have eight students in project search our cast programs we have eight programs now we added one more and then those programs have about 42

[00:52:48] students and we have um eight students in our uh start on success program which kind of partners with anova so that's where we are so we're ending the year and then we look forward to next year awesome thank you shanaz and then siak awards planning shanaz did you want to share anything on on that okay that's all i'm going to say you all we all we really do need some help now we're going

[00:53:21] to now be putting together our trophies and and getting everything together on the day of i will personally treat whoever comes to dinner because we order dinner right then and there we you know french fries milkshake kind of stuff you know so please please please come we really do need help on that day it's an amazing experience we're going to have quite a few people attending so that's my My biggest ask is help.

[00:53:48] Yeah, just reach out to Shanaz, reach out to me. Find someone. We will put you to work. If you don't feel like you have any skills to add to it, I promise you that you do. And we will find a place for you.

[00:54:04] So thank you so much. And for anyone who is involved with our PTAs, PTOs, it is not too late to ask your PTA, PTO for a donation. We have a lot of awardees this year, and trophies are very expensive.

[00:54:25] So we will be looking specifically for donations to go for our trophies. So that's a very easy way for we'll give you an account number. We'll have you call Crown Trophies, and you just give them our information, and you can make the payment just like that, and it'll be very easy.

[00:54:46] So please let us know if you are interested in doing that. Our executive committee will be meeting tonight at Clyde's after the business meeting. Preview, we'll probably be talking a lot about SEAC awards. And all are welcome to our executive committee.

[00:55:08] Carla, do you have an update on the Career and Technical Education Advisory Committee? Yeah, I can give that. Stephen Meyer and I both attended their last meeting on April 23rd where Dr. Grubbs talked about the fact that he's in his first year he spent this year doing a reorganization of the career and technical structure so I just

[00:55:41] don't know if any anyone knows but they have they identified 18 career clusters that provide and under which they have 40 career pathways that they've identified so they used to have one person that was in charge of all of that so they've done a reorg so that they will now have two different supervisors and each will only have eight to nine of the career clusters and

[00:56:15] And then each supervisor will have a specialist to assist them. And they're, you know, hoping what they really want to do, of course, is build up their business. What's the word I'm looking for?

[00:56:35] Relationships in a lot of different areas. They've also created five new positions for what they call work-based learning resource teachers, and they've grouped high schools in different clusters for that.

[00:56:59] And that's mainly what my two cents is I don't understand how that is going to or what relationship they're going to have with the transition center.

[00:57:17] Obviously, I don't think anybody wants to be hitting up the same employers. There should be some coordination, I would think. And so in terms of what you're thinking for this transition center, 40 pathways, that's a lot.

[00:57:40] That might be a lot more than what you're thinking about currently. So I would hope there would be a lot of discussion with Dr. Grubbs on how we can coordinate those two. That's my two cents. There is.

[00:57:57] I know Dr. Grubbs has been very active with the transition subcommittee, and I know he's having a lot of conversations with you guys. So it'll be really interesting to hear more about how it's all going to interplay because obviously, you know, we have a full spectrum of students, And, you know, some experiences are going to be good for some, and others are going to be good for others.

[00:58:20] And so I know that what's really great is that I know Dr. Grubbs has spoken a lot about wanting to make sure that all programs and pathways are open and available to students with disabilities. And he's very committed to that.

[00:58:35] So, yeah, thank you so much, Carla, for the update. And if anyone wants to hear a little bit more about SeaTac, they just did their advisory report at last night's school board meeting in the early part of the recording.

[00:58:51] So if you go into board docs, you can watch that if you'd like. It was a really extensive and interesting presentation. So if that is an area that you're interested in, I would encourage you to go and watch that.

[00:59:07] all right now we move on to our new business so we will do our roll call for quorum carl is having to work hard tonight okay uh beth carlson here liz crotty here jennifer de donato uh kathy fuligatti lambert uh marcia kelly tom ketchum shanoz khan razina katak laura colossi alicia

[00:59:45] mcfadden craig metz steven meyer catherine moran she's online kelly ralston aaron rizal poe katie rosenbrook carly sabatino she's on carly can you respond are you here okay um sharon trope

[01:00:20] i'm here thank you melissa wa sakina zarbush thank you all right excellent um on the screen You can see the QR code for our policy folder, so if you would like to follow along with our draft SEAC recommendations, you can go ahead and do that, and Melissa and Craig will come up and take us through this evening's policies.

[01:00:57] Ha ha, you guys thought you were getting out early tonight. It is a bit to get through, but hopefully we can do this relatively quickly. Point of order? Go ahead. I want to verify that we actually have quorum. Okay.

[01:01:17] Okay, do we have, is it just the one slide or do we have? - There's more slides. - Okay. - We need to do the no recommendations first. - All right, so we had no recommendations actually for policy 8655, which is the student personal technology use policy.

[01:01:37] So do I hear a motion to accept no recommendations to this policy? Thank you, Shanaz. Tom seconded. All right, we open for discussion.

[01:01:56] We had a motion that we will adopt no recommendations to policy 8655. I'll open the floor to any discussion. All right. Hearing none, we'll move to a vote. And all those in favor of adopting no recommendations to policy 8655, say aye.

[01:02:14] Aye. Any opposed? Oh, hold on a second. We've got to do the online people. My apologies. We usually do the in-person, then we do the online people. Okay. Nays. All right. And any nays? All right.

[01:02:29] Any abstentions? Okay. Beth Carlson. Aye. Catherine Moran. Aye. Carly Savatino. All right. Not sure if Carly's with us. And Sharon Trove. Aye. All right. And that will pass unanimously. I don't know that Carly's even here. She's absent. Yeah. She's absent. Okay. All right. Moving on. Policy 5440. Sorry. Let me

[01:03:06] find my notes. Okay. This is the policy for the literacy plan. Policy 5440 addresses the school Board's commitment to adopt a division-wide literacy plan for grade levels pre-k through 8 as required by the Virginia Literacy Act. In summary of our recommendations, our students who require adapted literacy curriculum are unable to access the materials that are on the VDOE currently approved list of evidence-based literacy curriculum. So SEAC requests that this be added to the LCPS school board legislative agenda. The second concern is that this policy

[01:03:46] does not reference special education at all nor the overlap between an MTSS which is multi-tiered system system of supports plan and a Section 504 plan or IEP so the recommendation number two is to add at the end of the sentence at line 27 of the policy quote provided under an MTSS plan section 504 plan or or IEP, end quote, so that the new sentence will read, providing for students who demonstrate substantial deficiencies on student assessments, screeners, and diagnostic tools, which may

[01:04:22] include reading intervention services provided under an MTSS plan, Section 504 plan, or IEP. All right, and the concern at, uh, the third concern we had is that there is, uh, that this policy does not explicitly state that MTSS will not delay a child find referral. So our recommendation that you see up on the screen there is to add at line 27 at the end of the first sentence quote MTSS will not delay a child find referral end quote. So the new paragraph reads providing for students who demonstrate substantial deficiencies on student assessments screeners and diagnostic

[01:05:01] tools which may include reading intervention services provided under MTSS plan section 504 planner IEP, NPSS interventions will not delay a child find referral. All right, and recommendation number four, in an effort to provide more transparency to parents and the community, guidance already provided to school staff regarding child find referrals and the triggers for referral should be memorialized in a regulation to accompany policy 5440. And then concern number

[01:05:37] four there's confusion among parents and the community on how MTSS plans and IEPs interface so recommendation number five guidance already provided to school staff on how general education and special education staff collaborate to ensure an MTSS plan and 504 plan or IEP are complementing each other and not competing should be memorialized in a regulation to accompany this policy 5440 So, those are the concerns and recommendations that were adopted by the Policy and Compliance Subcommittee.

[01:06:15] Do I hear a motion to adopt the concerns and recommendations of the Policy and Compliance Subcommittee to Policy 5440? All right, and I open the floor now for any discussion.

[01:06:33] Okay, and the motion, I think they know what the motion is. Again, repeating the motion that I just said, that we will adopt the recommendations and concerns from the Policy and Compliance Subcommittee to Policy 5440. All right, I'll open the floor now to any discussion on Policy 5440, Literacy Plan.

[01:06:54] Okay, hearing no discussion, we'll move to a vote. All those in favor of adopting the concerns and recommendations of the Policy and Compliance Subcommittee to Policy 5440, the Literacy Plan, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, nay. Any abstentions? Okay, going to our online folks, Beth Carlson.

[01:07:15] Aye. Catherine Moran. Aye. Carly Sabatino is not here, and Sharon Trofe. Yes, I agree. I think Carly is here, but she's having trouble either muting and unmuting.

[01:07:34] So maybe Jeff or someone can check in with her. Yeah, Jeff's tried to. He said that the issue is with her mic on her device. So he can't, I don't know if they have text chat or not.

[01:07:53] Yeah. All right. I just wanted to ask him. Okay. Sorry. Sorry to hold up the meeting. No, no, that's okay. All right. So, so that, uh, that, uh, vote passes unanimously moving on to policy 2310 committees of the school board.

[01:08:10] Um, now, uh, we had addressed this policy previously, but there were some additional concerns that were raised, um, to the policy and compliance subcommittee. So we took another look. And basically this policy addresses the school board standing, select, and advisory committees.

[01:08:29] And SEAC serves as an advisory committee to the school board. However, we had some concerns that a local SEAC is required by Virginia regulations to be in existence. and these regulations specifically define the functions of SEAC at 8VAC 20-81-230D2 as referenced at the end of the policy.

[01:08:52] However, those functions were not what's written in the policy itself. So we were just concerned that the actual regulatorily required functions of SEAC were missing from this policy. so our recommendation then is at line 286 to remove receiving special education services and replace that with disabilities um and then uh actually you know what and real quick the reason we changed that because our our recommendation last month was to do special education but we wanted to make sure um that we were covering all of our students with disabilities including those

[01:09:32] with 504s, because that is very clearly stated, um, in the regulation, the Virginia regulations, that that's what SEAC's responsibility is. So we just wanted to make sure it didn't sound like we were limiting our role just to special education. Thank you. Uh, and then recommendation number two is to delete lines 287 to 89 and replace it with the actual quoted from the regulations functions of the SEAC. Um, so those were our two recommendations to that policy. Uh, do I hear a motion to adopt the concerns and recommendations of the policy and compliance subcommittee

[01:10:08] to policy 2310 committees of the board school board okay so the motion is to adopt the concerns and recommendations from the policy and compliance subcommittee to policy 2310 committees of the school board all those in favor say oh sorry i will open it up for discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye those opposed nay any abstentions all right going to our virtual beth

[01:10:42] carlson i katherine moran i sharon trof oop sharon trof no i okay and it's carly on yet okay not yet all right uh so that motion passes unanimously right moving on all right now we are at policy 8115 individuals who may be admitted and that's admitted to loudon county public schools for free this policy establishes standards for individuals who do or do not in some cases meet

[01:11:19] age and residency requirements to be admitted free to LCPS. So the one concern that the Policy and Compliance Subcommittee had was that paragraph A.2.A does not seem to communicate what is cited in the actual regulation that it cites to.

[01:11:38] So our recommendation then is to include the following language from the regulation in paragraph A.2.A. Quote, whose second birthday falls on or before September 30th and who have not reached their 22nd birthday on or before September 30th, 2 to 21 inclusive, in accordance with the Code of Virginia. A child with a disability whose 22nd birthday is after September 30th remains eligible the remainder of the school year. And again, this is just to make sure that the language in the policy reflects the actual law. And we just didn't feel like it did actually state the age for how

[01:12:17] long students are eligible to receive special education services quite accurately. Okay, so do I hear a motion to adopt the concerns and recommendation from the Policy and Compliance Subcommittee to Policy 8.115 individuals who may be admitted free? I know, we're all so tired.

[01:12:48] All right, thank you in a second by Tom. So any discussion on Policy 8.115? All right, So, and again, the motion is to adopt the Policy and Compliance Subcommittee's concern recommendation for Policy 8115.

[01:13:06] So, all those in favor, hearing no discussion, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, nay. Any abstentions? Okay. And virtual folks, Beth Carlson? Aye. Catherine Moran? Aye.

[01:13:22] Sharon Trofe? Aye. And has Carly been able to get on? No. Okay. All right. So, that passes unanimously. And our last one. Okay. Policy 8225, admission, exclusion, or reassignment.

[01:13:39] This policy establishes standards for the reassignment of a student previously expelled, long-term suspended, or reassigned to an alternative education program. And that's whether that occurred at Loudoun County Public Schools or in a different school in Virginia, a different state, or a private school. It addresses all of those.

[01:13:58] Okay, so the first concern that SEAC had was that due process rights were being removed from policy and placed in a regulation where changes to that regulation are not subject to public notice or input.

[01:14:17] The due process rights of notice, number one, or opportunity to be heard, should remain within the policy itself. There is also a lack of transparency and public access to guidance documents that actually implement this policy.

[01:14:34] So, based on those concerns, our first recommendation is that all provisions of the original policy 8225 related to notice and opportunity to be heard, which those two things are our constitutionally protected due process rights, that they remain within the policy itself and not be removed to the corresponding regulation. Recommendation number two, any guidance document regarding the implementation of this policy should be made public. All right, our second concern, there needs to be considerations in this policy for

[01:15:13] students with disabilities that comply with the IDEA, Section 504, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other federal and state disability laws and regulations. There should also be a defined process for review of these cases on an individual basis with input from the Office of Special Education.

[01:15:37] Concern number three is to comply with the limitations as described in Virginia Code section 22.1-277.2 this policy should not apply to any student who has been expelled suspended or withdrawn from admission for reasons that do not present quote a danger to the other students or staff of the school division end quote and that quote is directly from Virginia law Virginia code there is concerned that students are withdrawn from admission by Virginia private

[01:16:12] schools or out-of-state public or private schools for reasons that do not involve danger to other students or staff. Examples include expulsion for attendance issues, for sexual orientation, based on disability, religious beliefs, etc so this policy should not apply in these situations only in those that the student was suspended expelled or transfer or reassigned to an alternative

[01:16:46] school due to issues that involve danger so recommendation number three is to add quote this policy shall exclusively be applied to students who have been expelled or suspended for more than 30 days from attendance at school by a school board or a private school in this Commonwealth or in another state or for whom admission has been withdrawn by a private school in this Commonwealth or in another state so long as the reason for that suspension expulsion or withdrawal

[01:17:24] is consistent with LCPS policies for suspension and expulsion all right and And then concern number four, it is not uncommon for students with disabilities to be assigned to alternative education programs for a myriad of reasons that don't always relate to a disciplinary action.

[01:17:49] The Section 504 IEP team should be involved in determining the appropriate placement within LCPS for those students with disabilities in compliance with federal and state disability laws and regulations. So, let me see if there's more.

[01:18:07] Nope, okay. Wasn't sure if it was up here. Okay, and so recommendation number four is to add, quote, for a student transferring into LCPS and assigned to an alternative education program by their previous Virginia or out-of-state school, before an assignment to alternative or adult education, the student's 504 or IEP team will meet to determine the student's least restrictive environment for placement.

[01:18:35] Okay. I know that's a lot. That was a meaty one. But that is a summary of our concerns and recommendations. So at this point, do we have a motion to adopt the policy and compliance subcommittee's concerns and recommendations to policy 8225 for admission, exclusion, or reassignment?

[01:19:00] Second by Tom. So the motion is to adopt the policy and compliance subcommittee's concerns and recommendations to policy 8225 um at this time i'll open the floor to any discussion and feel free to ask questions you know i know when we first got our eyes on this policy like it was a little bit complicated and it took a while to get a handle on it so if any if you don't just have to have like a point that you want to change that if you have an actual question about this policy

[01:19:35] please feel free to raise your hand so that we can if you have that question i'm sure there are are other people in this room who also have that question so good so I just want to raise this as a clarification which I think was recommendation number three on the previous slide that as we understand it there are I guess it's recommendation number two that there are one or more documents

[01:20:09] that guide due process about applying this policy which are not currently public that that is our understand well not strictly related due process but just how decisions are made um at the principle level um that is not public facing and has not been made public facing yep i just wanted to clarify any other questions or discussion okay hearing none then we'll move on to a vote to adopt the um concerns and recommendations to policy 8225 all those in favor say aye oh wait

[01:20:47] do we have a question question we will back up because this is like i said this is a meaty really super important one. Yeah, I was trying to just understand the part about the expulsion or being expelled for more than 30 days when we talked about when there's a danger to like the individual.

[01:21:09] We wanted to clarify that. I was trying to figure out why. So like I went back to the thing to review that, but I'm a bit confused as to what the policy is actually saying and what we're trying to change that are we i assume we're concerned that like a private school here in the state of virginia could expel someone for 30 days for like wearing like nail polish when you're not allowed to wear nail polish to school and we would want that person to be able to be admitted to lcps because we love nail polish right like those fun example but yeah yeah there could be much worse

[01:21:47] examples but like that would be but also you know many public school systems don't have the supports that we do and so someone who went to a different school system and did not receive the supports that were appropriate for their disability could have then escalated in behavior and at a first order level at the surface there could have been dangerous behavior but when we look in the the reason that that dangerous behavior was admitted was that they weren't getting the supports and then the question should be considered in our system with our supports could we construct a less restrictive environment and admit them and have that student be successful, we shouldn't

[01:22:26] just look at that surface, oh, there was an expulsion. We should be looking at what are the disability needs and why. Yeah, that makes sense for public and especially small little private schools they might not have. Yeah, okay. And also, and Ms. Richardson, if I get this wrong, please correct me, but the way the staff explained it to us in our meetings was that there is a review process. It's not a black or white, yes or no. The review process at the principal level is to determine whether or not they want it reviewed, whether the student can come into

[01:23:02] their school or not. And then a packet is put together. That packet of information about this potential new student goes through a rigorous review process. So we just want to be sure that we're clear that there is a review process our issue was what virginia law says is that this should be related to danger and we want to ensure that it's clear that if the decision is made after the review process to exclude a student from being able to enroll in loudon county public schools

[01:23:37] it's for a reason that is consistent with what our discipline policies are so we're not trying to specify, you know, this behavior, that behavior, or, you know, a sexual orientation or a disability or, you know, these examples that I gave of why other schools might expel a student, we just want to be sure that if the student is being rejected from enrollment in Loudoun County public schools, that it's consistent with what we as a community have decided are reasons that are appropriate to exclude a student and not reasons that would be considered to some people inappropriate to exclude a student from a public school.

[01:24:15] go ahead to dovetail with that the importance of the notice and the opportunity to be heard so when you enroll in a public school generally speaking there's a records transfer from your previous school and it comes over and that would be the first set of documents that lcps would review that however is the previous school's perspective and their perspective you know again if they may not have the supports in the culture that we do so they may look at a child with disability and simply see a bad kid. So this is also, you know, we want to ensure that there is

[01:24:54] an opportunity, a fair opportunity to at least present a different perspective on what might be going on. Because if LCPS were to make that decision only based on a school who already chose to exclude that student, potentially based on their disability, you know, then that would just be continuing the mistreatment and failing to meet the needs of that child. Okay, yeah, go ahead.

[01:25:20] I guess I was just curious about when you say the word danger and what that includes. Is that intimidating other students? Is that bullying other students? What does that entail that it seems very open-ended, I guess?

[01:25:39] Ms. LaBelle, I'm going to tap you on the shoulder for this one, because we've had this discussion. Is it the big three? The big infractions that can lead to expulsion. Samara is not here, what can I say?

[01:25:58] Some of the infractions that we have have to do with drugs, weapons, pardon me, community crime, so on and so forth. So those are the things that would be a red flag to us.

[01:26:17] And I think they would be to any parent, especially if they're bringing a child into your child's class that has been convicted. I don't know if that's the right word to use, but done these things in other schools and were expelled because of them.

[01:26:32] So that would be a reason for not allowing them into Loudoun County. Right. Those are our standards. The previous school or school system may have different standards, and the dovetail of that with disability is where many of our concerns come from.

[01:26:52] I don't think anyone here is concerned very much about if a student is convicted of a weapons offense that we would exclude them for, then presumably we would come to the same conclusion but we know that in other school systems in the country simply quote talking back might be a suspendable or even expellable expense offense and that may be a manifestation of a disability but they may not see it that way and I also wanted to follow up on you know Craig mentioned the due process issue

[01:27:29] Virginia is one of the states in our great America where our state constitution actually guarantees the right to an education not every state has that Virginia does and so because it's a constitutional right for citizens of Virginia that's why due process is so important that notice an opportunity be heard if a student is actually going to be denied that guaranteed constitutionally guaranteed right to an education our main concern is that the language regarding due process notice an opportunity be heard was removed from

[01:28:07] the policy and is being placed in a regulation and I know we've had this conversation multiple times this year in previous years about why SEAC is super concerned about that because policies go through public disclosure there are comment periods the school board is voting on it there's opportunities for for the community to be heard there's a lot of transparency in the process of developing a school board policy none of that applies to a regulation all right the staff at any time could change that regulation with or without consultation to school board council and that's our concern is that

[01:28:44] something such a fundamental right is being removed from policy where there's transparency and put into a regulation where there is no transparency and can be changed and again as i've said many many times this is not a comment on our current staff and administration and school board by any stretch of the imagination but we can't make policy based on current staffing we have to make policy that would cover the worst case scenarios any other questions or concerns or comments okay thank you that thank you for that robust discussion like i said it's a really

[01:29:22] important um issue in policy that you know so we want to make sure we're giving everyone a chance to be heard okay um if there's no more discussion then we will move to a vote um to adopt the concerns and recommendations of the policy and compliance subcommittee all those in favor say aye aye those opposed nay any abstentions all right from our uh online folks beth carlson i uh oh carly you may be here carly 17 i excellent thank you katherine moran i uh and

[01:29:59] Sharon Trofe? Aye. Okay, and so those recommendations pass unanimously. Thanks, guys. Oh, wait, sorry, we had one more. Oh, I almost forgot. Oh, boy, this is the celebration one. So our thanks and gratitude to the staff and particularly Dr. Carter for her hard work and listening to us and then making the changes to the set-aside fund language in the annual plan. So because of that change, to the language, the policy and compliance subcommittee made no recommendations regarding

[01:30:39] the annual plan. Just a quick reminder of what we're talking about. If you are not attending public school, if you are parentally placed in a private school or you are parentally home-schooled, the federal IDEA regulations require a little bit of money be set aside as a pool for services for those students. And we weren't even spending all that money, which is kind of interesting.

[01:31:07] But a long time ago, someone put in the annual plan that it could only be spent on speech-language services. And for years, SEAC had said, well, that's not really fair to pick exactly one service, and it's the only thing we could ever use that money for, rather than looking at the needs of the students.

[01:31:23] So the new language, I think, is great progress on allowing the teams to make a decision based on the needs of the students. And just, you know, the law says with the set-aside funds, they are limited to that pot of money. So unlike students who are enrolled in Loudoun County Public Schools, where technically the law says money's no limit, right?

[01:31:45] If that's what the student needs, the school is supposed to provide it. I know, I know, I know. Just talking about the law. But set-aside funds are different. It is a limited amount of money. So when the money's gone, whether it's spent on speech services only or if it's spent on anything that the students actually are identified needs, when the money's gone, it's gone.

[01:32:05] So, but, and that is how it works. I just didn't want it to appear, I know when Dr. Carter read that, that that was some kind of negative thing. That is exactly what the law says, is when the money's spent, that's it, for that year. Okay, so, do I hear a motion to accept the recommendation from the Policy and Compliance Subcommittee that we have no recommendations to this year's annual plan?

[01:32:32] Okay, so we'll have a motion from, it's like, you accidentally moved and flicked your hair and there you go. Jeffrey buzzers, Jeffrey buzzers. thank thank you jen and shanaaz thank you for your second shanaaz you don't get to make any motions next year so i hope you've gotten them all out of your system she's getting it in while she can um okay so now we had a motion to adopt the policy and compliance no recommendations

[01:33:07] to the annual plan is there any discussion questions discussion okay hearing none i will move to a vote. All those in favor of adopting no recommendations to the annual plan say aye. Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? And for our virtual folks, Beth Carlson? Aye. Carly Sabatino? Aye.

[01:33:34] Catherine Moran? Aye. And Sharon Trofe? Aye. Great. And that also passes unanimously. Yeah. Now we're done. Thanks guys for hanging in there. I know it was a long one. right it's still early guys there might be some sunlight so just as I don't I don't even know June 4th our SEAC Awards so please come and join us volunteer we would love to see you there and with that that's it I hope everybody has a

[01:34:12] wonderful summer break I know we're gonna have a ton of good work to do next year so hopefully everybody gets refreshed except for Paige's team which sounds like they will be very busy but hopefully everyone has a wonderful summer and enjoys the time with their kids. Oh yes and we are now it's not completely over if you would like to stay for our subcommittees. Yes we all got a little excited. We're going to break into for those who don't know our CX subcommittees. We've got our specialized literacy and math, our meaningful

[01:34:49] inclusion, our transition, and our policy subcommittees. So we are going to all break out into that and we're going to work on capturing all the excellent work that's been done this year and talk about plans for next year. So how about we do literacy and math down here at the front.

[01:35:12] We can do meaningful inclusion over here in the front, and then in the back left, my left, your right, we'll do policy, and then transition over in the back right, your left corner.

[01:35:29] And so I would just ask that as we all get into these groups, and it's absolutely open to everyone. So if you've ever been curious about the work that goes on in these subcommittees, stay and, you know, pick one that you want to check out or jump around. Either way, I would ask that we do introductions to make sure that everybody knows everyone and gets to meet each other.

[01:35:52] And then we will summarize the work, talk about future topics. then when you are done please make sure that I will be passing out a worksheet please make sure those come to me or if you need a little bit more time let me know and then after that everyone is free to go and enjoy the rest of your evening so thank you all so so much and get home safe

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